Field Notes

Sponges are not only a great help in the shower, but some of the oldest, simplest animals on earth. If you haven’t yet discovered how fascinating and vitally important to a healthy planet they are, Dr Anita George is...

For Anna, no two work days at A Rocha Kenya are the same. She may be underwater doing a bit of coral gardening, helping scouts from Dakacha forest think through a Christian response to a machete attack, writing an...

If you have lived longer than five minutes on this planet you will have realised pain and delight, suffering and consolation, anguish and ecstacy co-exist. For a conservationist and pastor like David Anderson, the...

Creation is groaning with ever increasing distress. Those at the frontlines of the fight to reverse the frightening trends need strategies for staying strong. Each episode of Field Notes concludes with our guest sharing...

Plastic has a rather dirty reputation these days. There are few places on land or underwater where you won’t find discarded plastic waste causing harm and havoc. Thomas Chhoa has spent his life in the petro-chemical...

Peter Harris founded A Rocha in the early 1980s and has given his life since to the cause of nature conservation. He has long known the vital importance of the question of how and why to value nature. In this...

Verónica is a transplant to the USA from Argentina. As a plant molecular and cellular biologist and a plant lover, she soon began getting to know the fora of her new home, discovering the extent to which native plants...

Rev Jacynthia Murphy is of Māori descent and serves in a Pākehā parish. In this conversation with Rev Silvia Purdie and the Field Notes hosts she discusses her indigenous perspective on faith and her passionate...

There is little in life with more direct environmental impact than food - how and what we produce, where we source it and how it gets there, how we prepare it and what we do with the waste. How do we balance sometimes...

Jayaprakash Bojan (JP)’s photo of a giant male orangutang peeping at him from behind a tree in a Borneo river won him National Geographic’s Nature Photographer of the Year in 2017. The image was seen by over 3.5 million...

While the outlook for biodiversity is rather bleak, all the evidence says conservation works - we just need to do it well and do it more. It sounds simple, but often well-intended interventions have unintended...

Growing up, Sylvia spent a lot of time on the family farm just outside Nairobi, Kenya. Where she remembers a wide open landscape, there are now blocks of flats and a hospital. Reliable rains have been replaced by four...

Jo and Rick are joined by Jo Herbert-James to discuss the themes in Jo Swinney’s Lent book, “The Whole Easter Story: why the cross is good news for all creation.” What does our relationship with God have to do with how...

This is the United Nations Decade of the Ocean, bringing an increased focus on caring for the ‘blue’ bit of the planet. Governing marine and coastal areas involves convening a multitude of groups - often with competing...

Cindy Verbeek left her city life for a rural Eden in northern BC, Canada, where the air was clean, bears nonchalantly wandered along the local high street and preserving nature was hardwired into community life. It...