Monica Evans

About

Monica Evans is a writer and community development practitioner based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Since completing her Masters in Development Studies in 2010, she has worked on environmental and community development projects in NZ, the Pacific and Latin America. She's particularly passionate about participatory research and environmental issues. She lives in a small town on New Zealand's wild West Coast.

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29 stories

Phil Lyver (second from left) and Tuawhenua kaumatua (elders). Image by Manaaki Whenua/Landcare Research.

Māori knowledge shows climate change domino effects on forest food chains

Monica Evans 14 Apr 2026

Lupine flowers in sunshine in Milford Sound, New Zealand. Image by Aneta Hartmannová via Unsplash.

Is ‘legal personhood’ a tool or a distraction for Māori relationships with nature?

Monica Evans 8 Jul 2024

Jerry Lotawa.

‘The forest is so much more than money’: Q&A with Fijian carbon project ranger Jerry Lotawa

Monica Evans 12 Sep 2023

Photos: Fiji’s first Indigenous-owned carbon credit project

Monica Evans 12 Sep 2023

Frozen albacore tuna on a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean.

U.S. grocery chains flunk sustainability, human rights tests for tuna sourcing

Monica Evans 21 Feb 2023

A sea snake.

Small island, big ocean: Niue makes its entire EEZ a marine park

Monica Evans 3 Nov 2022

Diver towing a string of taramea.

Young Māori divers hunt invasive crown-of-thorns starfish to save coral reefs

Monica Evans 15 Jul 2022

‘We have a full pharmacopoeia of plants’: Q&A with Māori researcher Nicola Macdonald

Monica Evans 18 Mar 2022

New Zealand Maori

Indigenous knowledge ‘gives us a much richer picture’: Q&A with Māori researcher Ocean Mercier

Monica Evans 25 Feb 2022

Cook Islands to grant seabed mining exploration licenses within a year

Monica Evans 17 Jun 2020

Sea lions. Image courtesy of Wildlife Conservation Society.

Effective conservation science must shift away from doomsday views and toward solutions: Study

Monica Evans 15 Jun 2020

Māori push for pandemic stimulus spend to save ancestral forest

Monica Evans 11 Jun 2020

Pandemic staple: Report links top tuna company to forced labor, illegal fishing

Monica Evans 7 Apr 2020

Biodiversity boon for Niue, the world’s first ‘dark sky nation’

Monica Evans 25 Mar 2020

Climate fix? ‘Fertilizing’ oceans with iron unlikely to sequester more carbon

Monica Evans 4 Mar 2020

Tuna supply chains under scrutiny as Bumble Bee brand changes hands

Monica Evans 7 Feb 2020

Whitetip sharks declared critically endangered, but gain no protections in Pacific

Monica Evans 13 Dec 2019

Catching fish to feed fish: Report details ‘unsustainable’ fishmeal and oil industry

Monica Evans 4 Dec 2019

Commitments worth $63 billion pledged for ocean protection

Monica Evans 28 Oct 2019

Cook Islands MPA leader fired after supporting seabed mining freeze

Monica Evans 15 Oct 2019

Give it back to the gods: Reviving Māori tradition to protect marine life

Monica Evans 27 Sep 2019

Paradise, polluted: Cook Islands tries to clean up its tourism sector

Monica Evans 23 Sep 2019

Will a massive marine protected area safeguard Cook Islands’ ocean?

Monica Evans 19 Sep 2019

“Part of something bigger”: the social movement around New Zealand’s Predator-Free 2050 goal

Monica Evans 20 Jun 2019

Predator-free by 2050? High-tech hopes for New Zealand’s big conservation dream

Monica Evans 13 Jun 2019

Jacqueline Evans. Image courtesy of Goldman Environmental Prize.

Building the world’s biggest MPA: Q&A with Goldman winner Jacqueline Evans

Monica Evans 30 Apr 2019

Puke Tīmoti helps local rangatahi (young people) make connections between cultural knowledge and science through the Te Whare o Rehua forest academy program. Image courtesy of Tūhoe Tuawhenua Trust.

Māori community reconnects youth with their ancestral forests

Monica Evans 26 Dec 2018

A kererū (native woodpigeon, Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae). The birds are culturally and ecologically important for Tūhoe. Image by Bernard Spragg. NZ via Flickr.

What makes a forest healthy? Māori knowledge has some answers.

Monica Evans 21 Dec 2018

Piupiu ferns (families Blechnaceae and Thelypteridaceae) on the forest floor. Image by Monica Evans for Mongabay.

A Māori community leans on tradition to restore its forest

Monica Evans 17 Dec 2018

News and Inspiration from Nature's Frontline.

Collage, Jahëna Louisin, Mongabay reporter, and a Vodun ritual

Prehistoric rock art site in northeast Zimbabwe showing a variety of large animals that were symbolic of the hunter-gather world view. Includes elephant, rhino. They relate to they complex system of trance or myth, both essential elements of their socio-religious system. Image courtesy of Robert Stewart Burrett via Wikimedia Commons.

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