Description
Our Changing World goes in search of one of Aotearoa’s rarest plants – the stunning kakabeak, or ngutukākā.
Its clusters of bright red blooms, each shaped like a parrot’s beak, make it a popular garden plant. But in the wild, ngutukākā is barely holding on.
Considered “nationally critical” by the Department of Conservation, only about 100 individual ngutukākā plants survive, clinging to exposed steep bluffs where goats and rabbits can’t get to them.
But now, locals along the East Coast, the kakabeak’s last stronghold, are determined to reverse its march towards extinction by propagating wild plants to turn State Highway 35 into a crimson highway.
Veronika Meduna joins them for the inaugural Ngutukākā Festival.
Today on the pre-panel producer Carol Stiles joins Wallace Chapman & Jesse Mulligan to preview tonight's show.
Published 11/22/24
Have you ever wondered what critter creates those large horizontal webs in our native forests? This week, Forest & Bird CEO Nicola Toki will introduce you to the creator behind the webs, the New Zealand sheetweb spider, Cambridgea foliata. It's the largest of our sheetweb spiders and can...
Published 11/22/24