Southland

A multitude of errors — from not wearing lifejackets to ignoring warnings not to go out — led to two men drowning when a boat sank in Bluff Harbour nearly four years ago.

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.