Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

On This Programme

Veronika Meduna visits Mana Island, a bird sanctuary north of the capital perhaps best known as a refuge for takahe. About 40 takahe live on Mana island, including ten breeding pairs whose chicks are now replenishing the small wild population in Fiordland's Murchison Mountains. Over the past few years, the Department of Conservation and a group of dedicated volunteers have re-introduced many other birds and insects to bring the island's ecology back to what it was before the arrival of people.

Mana Island is a bird sanctuary off the west coast of Wellington.
Right: Rangers Sue Corbwell and Grant Timlin.

Left: Ranger Grant Timlin join the tree-planting volunteers for a lunch break.
Right: Brothers Grahame and Ridgeway Lithgoe are back for their second tree-planting season on Mana Island.

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri is the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as the head of one of India's most successful environmental research institutes. He is in New Zealand this week and tells Veronika Meduna how the world could become carbon-free.

Dacia Herbulock meets the curator of the international art exhibition Moving Towards a Balanced Earth: Kick the Carbon Habit. The exhibition, which has been brought to New Zealand by the Natural World Museum in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), opens at Te Papa in Wellington this week and showcases works by 27 artists representing countries around the world. The contemporary art pieces all focus on climate change and include photographs, paintings, sculpture, video, multimedia and conceptual installations. We hear from artists including Antonio Briceno and Walangari Karntawarra.

Bouka. First god of Creation, Piaroa Culture, Venezuela, 2003 by Antonio Briceno. Image courtesy of the artist.

Dean Schneider is the recipient of the 2008 Green Ribbon Award for lifetime achievements in environmental education. He talks to Veronika Meduna about launching the first campaigns to protect the yellow-eyed penguin, or hoiho, and about the inspiration he gets from being involved in the UN environment conferences for children.