Wetlands to play important role in climate change, says new Forest & Bird Otago/Southland manager
Tuesday, 9 February 2021
Forest & Bird’s new Otago/Southland conservation manager Rick Zwaan believes wetlands can play an important role in climate change ambitions as a carbon sink.
Restoring wetlands is a significant goal for Zwaan in which Southland’s internationally significant Waituna Lagoon will play an important role.
Dire reports were recently released on the lagoon and he wanted to make sure work was being done in that catchment, Zwaan said.
One of the incredible things with wetlands was how it was a carbon sink, he said.
“If we need to get to where we need to get in terms of the climate crises, restoring and looking after wetlands is going to go a long way to help with that.”
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According to a 2018 research by Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research on carbon sequestration potential of non emissions trading scheme land on farms, states that peatlands (which are predominant in Waituna Lagoon) store more carbon per unit area than any other land type.
Despite only covering two to three per cent of the global land area, they are estimated to store 6.12×106 mega tonnes of carbon, equivalent to more than half the carbon dioxide currently stored in the atmosphere, the report says.
Great South carbon neutral advantage project lead Isabel Huther said that New Zealand did not measure carbon emission offset for wetlands.
What they did know was the health of mangroves determined their offset, unhealthy mangroves could actually release methane and be a negative sink, Huther said.
Southland had 94 hectares of open water wetland and 53 hectares of vegetative wetland, she said.
While he was new to the region, there were a lot of people passionate about the Waituna Lagoon but it was a question were they doing the right thing for, he said.
What were consented activities in the lagoon would be something to watch out for, he said.
Zwaan had previously been the press secretary for Green Party MP and former conservation minister Eugenie Sage.
Working in the office of the conservation minister gave him an incredible overview of conservation issues right across the country including Southland, he said.
A lot of that work about creating policies around conservation comes down and it only worked when there were groups in local communities pushing back with local knowledge, he said.
He had also been involved in the Green Party in other roles being a researcher on climate change for Dr Kennedy Graham.
It was climate change and his upbringing in the Coromandel that had created his interest in conservation at the young age of eight.
Realising that his school could be gone in a hundred years time due to rising sea levels, was an eye-opener that led to his interest for better environmental outcomes, he said.
As the climate gets warmer and warmer the battle to project biodiversity would only get hard and harder, he said.
Awarua Rūnanga chairman Dean Whaanga said that along with exploring options for mahinga kai at the Waituna Lagoon they would be looking at how the lagoon would act as a carbon sink.