Voice of Tangaroa

A collaboration between Our Changing World and New Zealand Geographic, the Voice of Tangaroa series explores the state of our oceans, and the extraordinary variety of life that calls it home. 

93% of New Zealand is covered in salt water. 80% of our biodiversity is in our seas. And yet this is the part of our realm we understand the least and treat the worst.

A collaboration between Our Changing World and New Zealand Geographic, th...

Crackle, pop, woof, crunch, click. In the ocean, an undersea orchestra is in full swing. Journalist Kate Evans discovers who's playing in it and why, and what happens when human noise drowns out this symphony in the sea.

Symphony in the sea

Journalist Kate Evans and presenter Claire Concannon discover a world of snapping shrimp, singing whales and barking John Dory.

Researchers Professor Craig Radford and Dr Jenni Stanley are uncove...

Kina numbers are exploding on some of our reefs, decimating seaweed habitats. Could this problem be solved by eating them? Kate Evans investigates the potential of kina-nomics.

The kina are out of control. As many as 40 urchins crowd into a single square metre of rock, devoid of other life.

A kina barren is a symptom of an ecosystem out of balance. Could we eat our way to a solution?

Kina zombies

Kina numbers have exploded as we'v...

People and livestock gobble so much fish that the seas soon won't keep up. Is the answer to grow fish on land? Kate Evans meets scientists figuring out the puzzles of how to farm some of New Zealand's iconic ocean creatures.

Many of our fisheries are under pressure. At the same time people are eating more fish. Could farming iconic New Zealand species be the future? And what are the advantages of growing fish on land?

A new lease of ...

What roles do our ocean ecosystems play in capturing carbon? Kate Evans speaks to iwi Māori working to improve the health of an estuary in the Bay of Plenty, and to scientists studying the fiords of New Zealand's southwest coast. There's potential for huge amounts of carbon to be locked away, if we don't mess it up. 

To avert the worst of the climate crisis we need to reduce our emissions. One way is to phase out fossil fuels, to l...

The Bounty Islands are tiny in terms of area - just some bits of granite jutting out of the ocean. But they are huge in terms of seabirds. James Frankham joins a team researching the erect-crested penguins who breed in this remote archipelago. Recent counts suggest the penguins of the Bounties are doing fine. But this is not the case on the Antipodes Islands, and the researchers desperately want to know why.

The Bounty Islands jut ...

New Zealand once led the world in marine protection. Now it looks like we will fail to meet our international promise to protect 30 percent of our ocean estate by 2030. Why is stopping fishing so politically fraught? How might our ideas about marine protection need to change? And why, when our seas are in need, is it taking us so long to learn to talk to each other?

This is an updated excerpt from the July - August 2023 New Zealand ...

Journalist Rebekah White meets two people who have been counting albatrosses on remote islands in the subantarctic for more than three decades. Their research shows that at least one species is en route to extinction. A few changes to the way we fish could save it.

Gibson's and Antipodean albatrosses are citizens of no one nation. They are ocean birds, living on the wind and waves, travelling massive distances, passing back and...

Kate Evans visits a passionate team as they carpet a remote volcanic island in Tonga with poisoned bait, hoping to eradicate rats. What does it take to complete this kind of project, what are the chances of success, and what will it mean for the island's ecosystems if they manage to remove the rats once and for all?

Rat eradication from islands is a team sport. It's not a competition - but if it were, New Zealand would surely b...