Frank Film07:00, May 28 2021
FRANK FILM
The West Coast s Ōkārito Lagoon is an ancient and pristine wetland, but New Zealand’s largest unmodified wetland is on fragile ground.
Sunrise over the Ōkārito Lagoon. It is an ancient and pristine landscape, stretching 3200 hectares across estuary waters and brackish inlets, home to more than 70 species of birds, many threatened. On a flat-bottomed boat Paula Sheridan and Swade Finch, owners of Ōkārito Eco Boat tours, slide through watery channels shrouded by rainforest beneath the rumpled outline of Aoraki Mt Cook and Mt Tasman. A lone kōtuku gazes through its reflection in search of food, one of a resident population of about eight to 10 that stay here year round.
Since 2007, some 198,000 gigalitres of environmental water had been released into the Murray-Darling Basin – the equivalent of almost 400 Sydney Harbours of water.
Research at the university’s Fenner School of Environment and Society looked at eight species listed nationally as threatened: two frogs, two waterbirds and four fish.
After reviewing all available data on the location and number of the species, the analysis published in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research found “no overall beneficial effect in terms of population increase of threatened species from environmental watering under the Basin Plan”.
Prof Jamie Pittock, a co-author of the research, told Guardian Australia: “Our overall finding is that there is no evidence of any improvement after reallocating about 2,000 billion litres of water and spending those billions of dollars.”
New science about the fate of freshwater ecosystems released today by the journal
Sustainability finds that only 17 percent of rivers globally are both free-flowing and within protected areas, leaving many of these highly-threatened systems¬ and the species that rely on them at risk. Populations of freshwater species have already declined by 84 percent on average since 1970, with degradation of rivers a leading cause of this decline. As a critical food source for hundreds of millions of people, we need to reverse this trend, said Ian Harrison, freshwater specialist at Conservation International, adjunct professor at Northern Arizona University and co-editor of the journal issue.
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The FINANCIAL New science about the fate of freshwater ecosystems released today by the journal Sustainability, finds that only 17% of rivers globally are both free-flowing and within protected areas, leaving many of these highly-threatened systems – and the species that rely on them – at risk, WWF notes.
“Populations of freshwater species have already declined by 84% on average since 1970, with degradation of rivers a leading cause of this decline. As a critical food source for hundreds of millions of people, we need to reverse this trend” said Ian Harrison, Freshwater Specialist at Conservation International.
“While 17% of all free-flowing rivers are within protected areas, in most countries the level of protection for large rivers is far lower,” said Jeff Opperman, World Wildlife Fund s (WWF) global lead freshwater scientist, “and it’s these large rivers that are most crucial for supporting fisheries that support rural communities.”