Fourteen per cent of monitored beaches in New Zealand are classified as "high risk" for water quality issues.

New Zealand's maritime authority is investigating how shipping around our coasts can be made safer, after a high-level report into the Rena grounding.

The beleaguered Interislander ferry Aratere has been cleared to sail again tonight after the vessel suffered yet another technical fault today.

In the long story of the Hauraki Gulf, humans have been in the picture for mere moments.

In the second of the Sea Change series science reporter Jamie Morton looks at the health of the gulf’s fish populations.

A company has abandoned a High Court appeal against a decision rejecting its application to mine up to 50 million tonnes of black sand off the West Coast seabed.

Marine officers are aghast a 294-metre iron-sands export ship will be allowed to berth close to the rugged Waikato west coast tomorrow - without a licensed pilot.

Activists say they shut the Wellington offices of an oil company this morning to protest deep sea oil exploration.

The problem-riddled Interislander ferry Arahura will be retired from service and replaced next year, it has been announced.

A fisherman's body was found in the waters of Auckland's Hauraki Gulf last night by a passing cruise ship.

The body of missing fisherman Maxium Efremychev has been found off Omaha Beach.

The skipper of the yacht with two Kiwi sailors on board that ran aground on a remote reef yesterday says the boat took a "massive pounding."

A search has resumed this morning for a missing fisherman who has not been seen since his boat capsized in an estuary north of Auckland on Saturday.

An exhausted Kiwi among the crew of a round-the-world racing yacht wrecked on a remote reef has told his family it was a miracle no one was hurt.

New Zealand's wealthiest man, Graeme Hart, has just finalised plans for another superyacht to add to his collection.

The police national dive squad will today search for a snorkeler who went missing from a Hawkes Bay beach.

New Zealand's Chinese community is outraged at a "lack of respect" shown to the wreck of a ship which sank more than 100 years ago with 499 Chinese bodies on board.

Two whales, which lived more than 20 million years ago, have been identified by Otago University researchers.

Boat builder Alloy Yachts, who confirmed they would be cutting a number of jobs last week, have just launched their latest superyacht.

The deaths of two New Zealand sea lions inside fishing nets designed to help them escape has prompted calls for better protection of the critically endangered species.

The Department of Conservation is appealing to the public for sightings of a rope-entangled humpback whale.

The superyacht manufacturer Alloy Yachts has announced it is cutting up to 130 jobs after lower demand and a high exchange rate put pressure on the business.