By Bel Tromp, ABC Rural
Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory is a wetland of world renown and a haven for birds and plants found nowhere else in the world.
Kakadu National Park. ACF (Australian Conservation Foundation)
But Kakadu and other wetlands around Australia are likely to be severely affected by climate change, according to a leading world expert on wetland ecology.
Professor Max Finlayson is lobbying governments and the scientific community to come up with strategies to protect wetlands.
His efforts are being supported by Professor Nick Davidson, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
Professor Davidson, believes that, as a founding Contracting Party to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, Autralia “continues to have strong formal commitments to the conservation and wise use of wetlands”.
“Over the past 40 years, Australia has designated a national network of 65 Wetlands of International Importance, or Ramsar Sites, covering over eight million hectares.
“But with such a naturally highly variable climate, and with additional change coming from a warming climate and more extreme weather conditions, it is a big challenge to maintain this network.
“Australians may need to change their attitudes and treat wetlands as highly valuable, highly beneficial and critical natural infrastructure needed to help minimise climate impacts and help people adapt to living in a changing world, rather than treating wetlands as competitors for scarce water.”
Professor Davidson is based in the Swiss city of Geneva and is in Australia this month to attend a workshop at Charles Sturt University.
Professor Max Finlayson, leading world expert on wetland ecology, Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, Albury – Wodonga; Professor Nick Davidson, Deputy Secretary-General of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
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