ECOLOGIST’S TAKE ON MANGROVE RESTORATION

Some mangrove sites could prove to be more effective for mangrove restoration than others, says Clint Cameron, an Ecologist Marine Scientist with Wildlands Consultants from New Zealand. Mr Cameron facilitated a two-day training on the concept of Blue Carbon, carbon sampling methodologies and data input and analysis at the University of the South Pacific.

Blue Carbon is the carbon captured and stored by oceans and coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, sea grass, tidal salt marshes and kelp forests.

Mr Cameron said blue carbon ecosystems are extremely efficient in capturing carbon from the atmosphere and storing this away in soils and biomass, more so than tropical rainforests in some cases.

“We are trying to figure out which potential mangrove restoration sites are most conducive to biomass and soil carbon accumulation in Fiji,” he said.

“So I will be going with some of the team from the Institute of Applied Sciences at USP and we are going to take soil samples and take measurements of mangroves from some potential mangrove rehabilitation sites.

“It’s more of an exercise to determine which sites will be useful for restoration and which sites are not.”

He said they are trying to figure out what opportunities are here in Fiji in relation to Blue Carbon and see if they could set up some sort of mangrove restoration. The training was attended by local practitioners and scientists from Government, Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP), USP, as well as Non-Government organisations. “I am teaching them some of the methods on carbon sampling that I learnt during my PhD research,” Mr Cameron said.

The formal training concluded on Saturday, however, some of the participants will be engaged in another week of field work.