Kennedy Warne

Kennedy Warne

Kennedy Warne co-founded New Zealand Geographic magazine in 1988, and served as the magazine’s editor until 2004, when he relinquished the editorship in order to pursue his own writing and photography.He has written for National Geographic, Smithsonian, Canadian Geographic, GEO and various travel publications, and continues to contribute regularly to New Zealand Geographic. He writes mostly about natural history subjects, and specializes in underwater assignments. His work for National Geographic has taken him from the sea ice of the Gulf of St Lawrence to the mangrove swamps of Bangladesh; from the rainforests of Fiordland to the kelp forests of Cape Town.His book Roads Less Travelled: Twenty Years of Exploration with New Zealand Geographic is published by Penguin (NZ) in September 2008. He lives in Auckland.

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Pilgrim at Key West

Writers need heroes—or at least this one does, and while looking at mangroves in Florida I decided to make a pilgrimage to the home of one of American literature’s most famous sons: Papa Hemingway. I wasn’t disappointed. . . Read more »
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The Path to Restoration

I was privileged to meet one of the leading experts in mangrove restoration in his home state of Florida. Robin Lewis has spent his working life fine-tuning methods for restoration former mangrove wetlands to full ecological functionality. As he explained and showed me, mangrove restoration is a lot more than just planting seedlings in the mud. . . Read more »
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Panthers and Airboats

As well as being a fabulous place to get to know mangroves, the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge is home to one of nature’s rarest big cats: the Florida panther. I talked about panther management with the leader of the recovery program while airboating around the Picayune Strand. That night, a panther showed itself, to the elation of one person and the frustration of another . . . Read more »
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Don't Have a Banana

The Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge is one of the great mangrove preserves of the United States. In fact, here mangroves are spreading where they’re not wanted—into former freshwater swamplands that were drained for a grandiose housing project that failed to get off the ground. I travelled to the refuge with a Fish and Wildlife researcher who was gathering groundwater data that will help environmental managers make the right decisions about how to restore the unique ecology of the area.
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Home Ground

While in Caravelas I met people whose lives are intertwined with mangroves. They live amongst them, make their livelihood from them and revere them. Here is what I wrote after meeting some of the fishers of Caravelas. . . Read more»
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Brothers in Arms

In my travels through the mangroves of the Americas I was keen to learn how mangroves had influenced or been incorporated into local cultures. In Caravelas, in the Brazilian state of Bahia, I met three remarkable brothers who promote the indigenous culture of Bahia—a culture that is infused with images and myths relating to mangroves. Here is a blog post I wrote from Caravelas ... Read more »