Freshwater macroinvertebrate specialist
ASK freshwater scientist Bindiya Rashni about her work and you are bound to get a whole new perspective about our river systems. Freshwater is an essential component of life for plants, animals, and humans. We all need it to survive.
In fact, the planet has access to just one per cent of fresh water.
About 70 per cent of Earth’s surface is covered in water.
Out of this, 97 per cent is found in the oceans leaving three per cent as freshwater. From that small amount of fresh water, about two per cent is locked up in glaciers and ice at the North and South poles. The remaining one per cent of freshwater is mostly groundwater with a small fraction filling the world’s lakes and rivers.
So if there’s less than one per cent of surface freshwater in the world imagine how critical or how small the percentage of freshwater in Fiji, which is already a dot in the map.
“For every single person who consumes water freshwater use and maintenance is a priority,” said Bindiya.
“The knowledge of understanding its importance is your responsibility as well as to conserve it and maintain its quality,” she added.
Listening to Bindiya - Fiji’s only freshwater macroinvertebrate specialist, was an eye-opener as she took me on a journey into her world of river organisms that play a huge role in keeping our freshwater systems in its natural state of functioning.
If you wonder why our laws require an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report before development takes place, then this is why you have to understand her work.
Our freshwater and flora and fauna are interconnected in an underwater web of life. Every living creature in the river plays a role in maintaining the ecological integrity of these systems from which we harness the ecosystem services for survival.
For those not familiar, macroinvertebrates are organisms that lack a spine and are large enough to be seen with the naked eye. Some examples include prawns, snails, clams, worms and insects, such as dragonflies and damselflies.
According to Bindiya, majority of these freshwater insects live in the aquatic habitat during the early stages of their lives and emerge as terrestrial adults populating the riverbank vegetation.
These insects act as pollinators and are beneficial for horticultural farmers.
She added freshwater insects make up the bulk of the freshwater macroinvertebrate community – about 90 per cent.
Of the two million known terrestrial insects, 80,000 species depend on the freshwater bodies for all or part of their life cycle. Non-insect freshwater invertebrates include prawns, shrimps, clams, snails, worms, and leeches.
“It is very important for people to understand a very natural and unavoidable fact that rivers are geographically located in an unfortunate position in catchments which makes them vulnerable to human activities that cause damage (either directly or indirectly) to the environment on a global scale,” added Bindiya.
“Rivers and streams lie low within landscapes. This poses a risk of making them a “sink” for wastes, sediments and pollutant runoffs. Therefore any proposed development within the vicinity of a flowing system requires an appropriate EIA which takes into account the physical, biological and socio-ecological impacts as well as mitigation measures to ensure continued ecosystem services.”
Bindiya is currently working towards her doctoral studies to develop Fiji’s first freshwater Index of
Biotic Integrity (IBI).
She earned a Master of Science Degree in
Freshwater Ecology in
2014 and a Bachelor of Science Degree in