Most beautiful country in the world...

What springs to mind?

Brazil with the Amazon? New Zealand and its fiords? Italy and its history?

Nope, apparently it's Latvia.

That's according to blog poll by 'Conflict of Pinterest' anyway, as voted for by internet keyboard warriors, and it's a very interesting read and result!

Obviously not the most in-depth research or reliable sample, and maybe Latvian's are voting in their hoards. And any poll which places Afghanistan higher than the Falklands (not a separate country we know, but French Guiana has its own vote too) or Fiji can't be taken too seriously.

But with the UK and New Zealand in the top 10 (5th and 7th respectively) we won't complain too much!

94 days left...

The Olympic Football draw has been made, and it threw up a very interesting NZID based point!


In the Women's tournament New Zealand and Team GB have been drawn in the same group along with Brazil  (gulp) and Cameroon. New Zealand won their qualifying match 15-0 on aggregate so will be no easy game for Team GB. The match between the Football Ferns and Great Britain will take place on the 25th of July, 2 days before the opening ceremony and the overall curtain raiser of the entire games. No pressure then!


No such NZID based rivalry for the GB men's team though, they have drawn, Senegal, UAE and possibly the toughest group, Uruguay. Not that the NZ men's team had an easier draw, drawing Brazil same as the women's team, with Belarus and Egypt making up the rest of another tough group.

Conservation is all about will

I just happened across this BBC article about the Iberian lynx from August last year.

Now I'm not suggesting that lynx be introduced to New Zealand to control rabbits, but the last line is compelling:


"If a species is doomed, it is only doomed by a lack of will to conserve it."

...and Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy (in Tauranga)

I have to be honest and say that Tauranga doesn't tend to feature heavily on my tailor-made holiday itineraries.  There is nothing wrong with the city at all but there just isn't too much in the experience that I feel is unique and special so I tend to suggest that my clients just call in on their way to Rotorua or Taupo.

That is all about to change though, especially for clients with children, and my children will insist that we visit when we are on holiday in New Zealand next year.  

Lynley Dodd's series of books about Hairy Maclary and his mates have been brilliant bedtime story material for nearly 30 years now and by this time next year there will hopefully be a number of statues dotted around Tauranga to commemorate their tireless work in getting children off to sleep.

Hairy himself, Schnitzel von Krumm, Muffin McLay, Bitzer Maloney and the rest will all be there, no doubt stalked by their nemesis Scarface Claw.  Well I'm excited anyway!

So is it really all rosy for kiwi conservation?

According to this article in Wanderlust it is.

Or you can read this article in Northland's Northern Advocate for a different perspective. Please do click on this link and look at the photograph of a pile of dead kiwi.

We need facts and hard truth here.  Too many people in the travel industry are eager to pick up on positive news and then move on, comforted by the knowledge that everything is going to be okay.  Grim, depressing reality and tourism don't usually mix and I just do not buy into the whole "take only photographs, leave only footprints" thing. Both tourists and those within tourism need to be leaving something a bit more useful than footprints. 

This story is about the Northland brown kiwi and, as The Northern Advocate tell us, "The unique Northland brown kiwi lays more eggs per year than other kiwi, and can start breeding at 3-4 years."   In addition, "Northland kiwi are phenomenal breeders, and can withstand reasonably high chick losses yet still have a growing population."

So what about the great spotted and the little spotted, the tokoeka and the rowi?

Or the fact that the little spotted kiwi can only survive on predator-free islands or behind predator-proof fences?

Or that once you would have found it almost impossible to wander through a New Zealand forest without hearing if not seeing a kiwi?

Or that since 1930 the population has seen a cataclysmic crash from 5 million birds to about 60,000?

This is the harsh reality of kiwi conservation and the danger of an article like Wanderlust's, albeit a completely inoffensive one, is that it gives false hope or encourages a misplaced belief that things are just fine and bypasses the fact that there is an environmental war raging in New Zealand.  And it is largely a guerrilla war being fought by a handful of "little" people who care such as Fergus & Mary Sutherland, Joyce Kolk & Johan Groters, Zealandia and Orokonui.

When the population is up to a good million or so, which is still less than 10% of the original population, then I think Wanderlust will be fine to go ahead and publish an article entitled "Kiwi's future could be looking up". 

Wairaurahiri stoat trap 7

And Wendy & Graham add a little bit of Macclesfield to Fiordland.

Wairaurahiri stoat trap 6

Thank you Marion & Keith, excellent work.

Close encounter with Maui's Dolphins

The critically endangered Maui's Dolphin is the smallest and rarest dolphin in the world, with a population of around 79 according to a recent estimate.

So to see four at once is a significant proportion of the population, about 5%.

Put into context, compared to the whole of the UK, that's the populations of Greater Manchester + Liverpool combined!

Responsible tourists

We already have a handful of stoat traps hiding in the forest along the Wairaurahiri River in Fiordland but the initiative is really starting to move up a gear now.

With our friends and partners in Auckland, ID New Zealand, we are arranging jet boat trips with Joyce Kolk and Johan Groters on the Wairaurahiri River on a not for profit basis with our commission being donated to their stoat trapping programme.  This will fund one new trap for every couple who take a trip down the river and over time we believe it will make a huge difference to the numbers of birds in that part of Fiordland. And maybe the idea will spread...

Stoats are the single biggest threat to New Zealand's rare and unique birds.  Introduced in the 1880s to control the plague of introduced rabbits, even way back then against expert advice, this has proven to be one of the most infamous examples of the foolhardiness of interfering with a balanced ecosystem, especially one as unique and fragile as New Zealand's.  Rather than chase rabbits, stoats find it much easier to hunt birds and chicks with no evolved mechanism for dealing with such a predator and as a bonus the stoat has no serious predators to worry about itself.

The stoat is a beautiful animal and I am always very happy to see them here in the UK but they have no place in New Zealand and they need to be controlled.  It is brutal and unpleasant and it isn't their fault, it's ours.

There are many disturbing statistics related to the stoat but this particular line from New Zealand's Department of Conservation pretty much tells the story:

"Stoats kill an average of 40 North Island brown kiwi chicks per day - this adds up to 15,000 per annum and accounts for 60 per cent of North Island brown kiwi born."

Joyce from Wairaurahiri Jet emailed the above photo overnight and it shows Wendy Houston and Carole & Ray Harris with their very own stoat trap, primed and ready to go out there to do its grim but vital work.

Brilliant blog about New Zealand's karearea falcon by Steve Attwood

...at Zealandia and the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington, New Zealand's capital city located at the far south of the North Island.

What an engaging and compelling account of 5 months in the life of a pair of New Zealand falcons and their latest offspring, with brilliant photo illustrations....

Karearea – a season of the falcon

New Zealand falcon (Falco novaeseelandiae)