Lush Cosmetics, famous for embracing contentious causes, agitates for Māui dolphins
Thursday, 18 June 2026
It’s well known for leaning into the most contentious of debates, unlike most businesses - and now, Lush Cosmetics in New Zealand is marshalling its customer base to oppose bottom trawling of the oceans.
The company is joining forces with Tāngaro Tuia te Ora (the Endangered Species Foundation), and from today will sell a limited-edition Māui dolphin soap in-stores, with 75% of the sale price going direct to Tāngaro Tuia. Lush is also pledging to facilitate “community conversations that honour the tapu of our oceans”, and collect signatures on a nationwide petition to stop bottom trawling.
There are less than 50 Māui dolphins left, a level deemed to be “nationally critical”. These are the world’s rarest and smallest dolphins, and found almost exclusively in shallow coastal waters off the west coast of the North Island.
There are 15,700 “nationally vulnerable” Hector’s dolphins, which are found in South Island waters.
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Bottom trawling by fishing companies - the dragging of heavy, weighted nets along the seafloor - not only disrupts the habitat and food chain for dolphins but can see them get tangled in the nets and drown.
Lush said in a statement that Aotearoa was at risk of becoming one of the first countries in the world to allow a dolphin species to go extinct, and “Kiwis across the nation must advocate for protecting our oceans and native marine life,” by advocating to ban the practice.
Lush Cosmetics’ advocacy and activism executive Jessielee Pearce said the company had a “moral responsibility to bring greater nationwide awareness to this urgent issue, demand immediate action, and use our platform to advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves.”
“This soap is a symbol of our support, and it is part of a much larger collective call for stronger environmental protections for Aotearoa’s unique ecosystems. We are proud to partner with Tāngaro Tuia te Ora to spark conversation, education, and action to help ensure a future where the Māui Dolphin can flourish and thrive.”
General manager of Tāngaro Tuia te Ora, Natalie Jessup, said the country “urgently need[s] solutions that match the scale of this challenge. This partnership with Lush empowers everyday people to take direct action, contributing to the long-term ecological restoration the Māui Dolphins desperately need.”
A range of conservation groups are marshalling support to better protect Māui and Hector dolphins. A High Court judicial review, brought by the Environmental Law Initiative, is set down for late October in the Wellington High Court. It will argue the Government's Threat Management Plan for commercial fishers leaves too much of the dolphin habitat unprotected and fails to adequately reduce fishing-related deaths.
Lush, meanwhile, is no stranger to embracing controversial causes, and the Maui Dolphin/anti-bottom trawling campaign is not among the more controversial of them. It has supported Gaza, trans rights and anti seabed mining causes, among others, and in early 2025 launched an in-store and online campaign supporting a Ngāti Whakaue petition to take a stand against the Treaty Principles Bill, with its marketing material calling the bill a “direct threat to Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.
The global company, which is still owned by its original founders, just this week caused an uproar when an LGBTQ+ pride display in the window of a Lush cosmetics store in Chelmsford, England featured a mural of a tiger with top surgery (breast removal) scars, with “Proud of my stripes” on it.
Well known UK television personality Julia Hartley-Brewer made the image go viral after sharing it with her 500,000 followers on social media, calling the image “dangerous and sick” and calling for a boycott of the business.