Al Gillespie asks whether the same approaches of decision makers would have been made with our best ski fields, white water rapids or premier bush walks in national parks.

An Austrian couple have been rescued from their yacht near American Samoa after getting into trouble for the second time in a week.

The body of a local politician has been found in Lake Wanaka, after his family raised the alarm when he failed to return from a fly-fishing trip at the Makarora River mouth.

Thousands of tenants are picking up the tab for water bills that should be paid by their landlords.

New landlord Vicky Crawford has been inadvertently passing on the full Watercare Services bill to her tenants - unaware a portion of it was hers to pay.

Watercare Services has hit back at critics of the $800 million central interceptor plan.

Only minutes away in the Hauraki Gulf are plenty of sanctuaries for animals - and humans.

Auckland councillor Noelene Raffills has become the latest politician to announce she is abandoning the Communities and Residents ticket.

A love of horses and wakeboarding has seen a Northland equestrian duo combine raw horse power with the exhilarating watersport.

A small bay in Northland could be filled in to create a boat ramp to accommodate the number of boats launched off the beach over a few weeks in summer.

Flee the fog in San Francisco, writes Christine Sheehy.

A whale has knocked out a surfer by tossing him into the air with its tail in a bizarre incident at Bondi Beach.

To see how easily the truth about fluoride can go from pearly white to shades of grey, look no further than the sparkliest weapon in the pro-fluoride arsenal: areas with fluoride in the water supply have lower rates of tooth decay than areas without.

Almost half of New Zealanders support the adding of fluoride to their drinking water despite councils increasingly dumping it, a Herald-DigiPoll shows.

I see our environmental strategies as irrational. As a mother and grandmother, I consider them a betrayal of future generations, writes Dame Anne Salmond.

Ollie Williams thought he was going to die as he lay pinned beneath a jetboat on the Ngaruroro River, trapped underwater and running out of air.

Christchurch City Council has been given a fortnight to speed up its consenting process, or power to grant consents will be taken away from it by the Government.

The path of last month’s devastating tornado through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore is revealed as a scar across the city in a NASA satellite image.