Get Involved
Whether you’re an educator, student, researcher, or ocean enthusiast, there’s a place for you in Seaweek! Explore our resources, attend an event, organise an event, or share your own Seaweek story. Together, we can celebrate, learn, and take action to protect our ocean.
Aotearoa New Zealand may have the world's highest proportion of endemic marine species, species found nowhere else on Earth.
Seaweek 2027 celebrates exactly that: the native and endemic species, local ecosystems, and everyday connections that make our part of the ocean unlike anywhere else. Along the way, we'll explore how our local waters connect to the wider Pacific and the global ocean too.
What Makes Our Ocean Uniquely New Zealand?
That's the question at the heart of Seaweek 2027. It's bigger than species alone. It's about our unique places, our unique relationship with the sea, and our responsibility to look after it.
Our Unique Marine Life
That's the question at the heart of Seaweek 2027. It's bigger than species alone. It's about our unique places, our unique relationship with the sea, and our responsibility to look after it.
Our Unique Places
What makes your local moana unique? From harbours to estuaries, reefs to open ocean, every stretch of coastline has its own character.
Our Unique Relationship With the Ocean
How is the ocean part of who we are? Through mātauranga Māori, recreation, kai, science, wellbeing and story, the sea is woven into how we live.
Our Responsibility to Care for It
What can we do to care for what makes this place special? Understanding and connection are only the start, tangata tiki turns that into action.
One Ocean. Many Unique Places.
Seaweek provides a shared national identity, while every community brings its own local flavour. A Seaweek event in Northland doesn't need to look like one in Otago, each can celebrate the species, habitats, stories and challenges that matter locally.
What makes your moana unique?
See What’s On in Your Region
Hover over the map pins to discover events happening near you.
Northland
Ocean Literacy, Woven Through Everything
Seaweek builds ocean literacy by helping people recognise the ways the ocean shapes us, and we shape it in return. Uniquely New Zealand gives us a new door into that same idea: understanding grows naturally out of noticing what's special about our own coastline first.
Organise a Seaweek Event
Seaweek continues to grow and thrive because of people like you. Past events have featured guided walks, talks, clean-ups, art workshops, citizen science, storytimes and festivals, and there's no single right way to bring Uniquely New Zealand to life in your community.
We've developed an event planning guide to make the process as straightforward as possible, including a list of key considerations and how to submit your event. (Existing planning guide and submission links retained.)
Reach out to us at seaweek@merc.org.nz with any questions.
Regional Coordination
Interested in a larger role coordinating Seaweek events in your region? See the Regional Coordinator Role Description for more details, and get in touch.