After losing over $16,000 worth of milk, and working 40 hours straight, one Western Southland dairy farmer is in awe of the support from her rural community.

Researchers are soaking up huge amounts of information after discovering 41 new species of sponge in Fiordland.

Tourist town Te Anau is barely limping in the face of power and communications outages, with one local describing the situation as a "wake-up call" and a tourist saying everyone looked like "zombies".

Southland District Council is urgently calling on residents in the townships of Tuatapere, Ohai, Nightcaps and Otautau to conserve water immediately.

Invercargill residents will have more opportunity to get into the swing of things when they are walking though the city’s parks and reserves.

For the past 25 years, volunteers have been quietly toiling away in Otatara’s back-blocks, planting trees — 37,000 of them over 21,000 hours.

The chance to become an engineer has become a reality for an Invercargill secondary school student.

The road to Milford Sound will be closed today, with a warning intense weather will heighten snow and avalanche hazards until next week.