Rivers, big rivers. They can be political borders – think of the Rhine – when it marked the ‘civilised’ Roman Empire to …

When a forest is dead, but somehow still there – either as bleached stumps, and felled, and possibly burnt trunks, I call …

We owe so much of what we know of early Dunedin to just a few artists! Up till 1850, there’s only a …

Tree ferns are indicators of a consistently pretty wet climate. In New Zealand-Aotearoa, if you look closely (and not too closely if …

The Ghost of a young prostitute Locals know that Room 1 of the old Vulcan Hotel, in the tiny village (permanent population …

In the court case following the 1878 fire that virtually annihilated Waimate Bush, a witness described the wind conditions as “a hurricane” …

Leads to New Zealand’s  ‘lost forests’ turn up in all sorts of places. I was in the Dunedin Public Library when I …

My Submission I thank the Environment Select Committee for the opportunity to make a submission on the Fast-track Approvals Bill – at …

Crimea, Goths and Archaeology The indigenous people of Crimea are generally regarded as the ‘Crimean Tartars’. But Crimea has older identities than …

A little over 700 years ago, humans finally discovered the last habitable place on Earth, Aotearoa-New Zealand (Wilmshurst et al., 2011; Mulrooney …