Think twice before playing in a river in the yellow zones. Or the green.

Splashing around in a New Zealand river? This map shows your risk of coming down with campylobacteriosis, a gastro illness that can cause severe diarrhoea, fever, abdominal pain and vomiting. (Campylobacter is the bacteria that got into Havelock North’s water supply in 2016, infecting thousands of people and causing four deaths.) The map comes from the new report Our Freshwater 2026; a topline finding is that because of campylobacter, an estimated 44 per cent of the total length of New Zealand’s rivers was unsafe for swimming between 2020 and 2024. Yellow indicates a risk of more than seven per cent—deemed, along with light green, “not suitable”. Darker green hovers right on