How OzFish Unlimited is making space for nature
Written by Climate Systems Hub Fellows John Burley, Olly Dove, Ned Haughton, Hanna Heidemann, Claire Mason, Jenny Styger in collaboration with OzFish Unlimited Project Officers Zoe White and Riley Marcon.
In August 2024, we were part of a small group of early-career climate professionals that visited a saltmarsh restoration site near Ballina, NSW, managed by the Australian not-for-profit environmental organisation OzFish Unlimited (OzFish). Zoe and Riley, the project officers spearheading the initiative, shared insights into the challenges they are facing and what actions they are taking in local areas across Australia to restore critical saltmarshes.
A saltmarsh ecosystem on the Richmond River near Ballina, northern NSW. Zoe and Riley showed us the work they are leading to rehabilitate damaged saltmarsh through their Saving Our Saltmarsh project. This fragile ecosystem requires years of rehabilitation to bounce back after years of recreational driving and rubbish dumping.
What is saltmarsh and why is it important?
A saltmarsh is a coastal ecosystem found in the intertidal zone, where land meets saltwater or brackish water. Saltmarshes occur in low-energy coastal areas and are often found in estuaries, inlets, bays or other areas that offer protection from waves, such as behind mangrove. Saltmarshes are characterised by a low, dense assemblage of salt-tolerant grasses, shrubs, chenopods, and other plants that thrive in waterlogged, saline soils.
Historically, European settlers viewed areas of saltmarsh as wastelands. Saltmarsh are waterlogged, muddy and often stinky. Thepivotal ecosystem services they provide as the nursery of the seas was not obvious. As a result, many areas of saltmarsh were drained and converted to farmland, used as rubbish dumps or “reclaimed”, developed for housing or industry.
Saltmarshes provide habitat for diverse wildlife, including fish, migratory and non-migratory birds and invertebrates but are particularly important for the ‘ecosystem services’ they provide. Saltmarshes are a breeding and feeding ground for many key recreational fish species and are thus critical to maintain ocean fish stock. The ability of saltmarshes to filter pollutants further underscores their significance in supporting a healthy environment. Saltmarshes naturally reduce flood impacts in the landscape and are much more cost-effective than construction and infrastructure solutions.
Saltmarshes are currently being studied to better understand their potential as carbon sinks – what is sometimes referred to as ‘blue carbon’. There is hope that appropriate management of saltmarshes can provide both an ecosystem-based approach for adapting to climate change as well as mitigation through storing atmospheric carbon. All these critical services make saltmarsh of high economic value as well.
At the interface! Mangroves and their specialized root-like structures (called pneumatophores) characterise the shoreline and can tolerate greater tidal energy and inundation. In areas of higher elevation, you can see the delicate saltmarsh that can take years to regenerate after disturbance. It is home to a wonderland of biological diversity including many species of crabs and snails.
Why did a group of climate scientists visit this saltmarsh restoration site?
Saltmarshes are increasingly threatened by a combination of human activities and environmental changes. One of biggest threats is coastal development, which often involves draining, filling, or altering marshlands for construction, agriculture, or infrastructure projects, directly leading to habitat loss and fragmentation. Pollution, particularly from agricultural runoff and industrial waste, can degrade water quality, harming the plants and animals that depend on these ecosystems. We visited a saltmarsh site in the Richmond River catchment, which is no stranger to the pollution and low water quality challenges faced by saltmarsh around the world.
Climate change also poses a significant threat to saltmarshes, with rising sea levels leading to more frequent submerging of these habitats and altering their delicate balance of salt and fresh water. With such a narrow tolerable range for water coverage, rising sea levels are leading to a global trend of saltmarsh ecosystems being replaced with mangroves. The increased frequency and intensity of storms is another process that contributes to erosion and further loss of saltmarsh extent. With many of these hazards projected to increase under climate change scenarios, we are looking at a future where saltmarshes have a compromised ability to provide essential services for our communities and human wellbeing such as healthy waterways, thriving fish stocks, and flood protection.
You can explore an interactive viewer of land use made by the European Space Agency (“World Cover”) for the area we visited. Slide the bar across to compare the years and consider the extent of development and sea level rise alongside the extent of mangroves and herbaceous wetland (including saltmarsh). See Ballina Airport strip for reference if you know the area. And note, they do include a caveat that the model in each year is different.
How OzFish is making space for nature
OzFish is an Australian charity dedicated to the conservation and restoration of fish habitats across the country, empowering recreational fishers and local communities to actively protect and enhance their waterways. The community empowerment angle of this organisation is extremely inspiring. Especially innovative is OzFish’s unique angle to engage new players, the Australian fishing community, in conservation issues by educating the fishing community on the importance of key fish habitats, and how protecting and restoring these crucial areas helps to ensure a sustainable fishery for better fishing, i.e“Better habitat, better fishing”.
To showcase their work, OzFish took us on a tour of a local restoration site near Ballina, on the Richmond River as a part of their Saving Our Saltmarsh Project. We smelt the salty air and crouched down and peered at miniature snails and invertebrates hiding in the saltmarsh forest canopy, imagining the generations of fish relying on these healthy forests to keep safe from predators and provide essential nutrients and food. The local complexities of these issues were showcased as Zoe and Riley explained how fundamentally important these areas are to human life and wellbeing while at the same time being under constant threat from development that will limit the capacity of saltmarsh to retreat backwards from the rising ocean. Alongside the on-ground work OzFish does in restoring habitats, their community approach to science and restoration means they play a key role in education, raising awareness and advocating for the issues that fish habitats face. The threat that human interference and coastal development pose for the declining saltmarsh communities is of huge significance to the environmental values of the area.
OzFish and hundreds of other organisations are undertaking coastal restoration activities all around the Australian coastline. If you work in this space, make sure your restoration projects are listed in the Australasian Coastal Restoration Network database so the community can learn what is working, where, and why, and can scale up efforts for greater impact. And if you love fishing, or want to get your hands dirty and protect these special places, make sure to visit the OzFish Unlimited website to connect with your local chapter and get involved in advocating for and restoring your local waterways.
Saving our Saltmarsh is funded by the NSW Government through a partnership between the Saving Our Species program and the Environmental Trust.