Truganina Swamp is a 175-ha wetland of Biodiversity Significance, providing critical habitat for threatened and protected fauna as well as threatened saltmarsh vegetation. However, particular areas of this wetland need restoration due to pressures from a range of urban threats. With the help of local citizen scientists, Friends of Truganina Wetland (FOTW), and Melbourne WaterRead more
Blog
Historically natural coastal wetlands were converted to pastureland to maximize available farming area along Victoria’s coast. However, these coastal pastures limited the lands profitability due to the difficult growing conditions, invasive weeds and waterlogged soils. Our project intends to use low-cost fencing to restore marginal farmland back to coastal wetlands, where farmers end up withRead more
The Blue Carbon Lab has received $200,000 of funding from the Helen MacPherson Smith Trust for the Victorian Coastal Wetland Restoration Program. This funding will be used to build upon the achievements of the program over the past 3 years and look to upscale wetland restoration using low-cost methods along the Victorian coast. This project will do so by determining scalability, supporting practitioners with specialist resources,Read more
This week is NAIDOC week, where we celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This year’s theme is Heal Country, which means embracing First Nation’s cultural knowledge and understanding of Country as part of Australia’s national heritage, and that the culture and values of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders are respected equally toRead more
Farm dam fieldwork 🐮🤠 Only a few days before the onset of Melbourne lockdown, two intrepid BCL members, Noyan and Pawel, completed a remarkable fieldwork campaign to measure farm dam emissions across the South-East of Australia. After visiting 64 farm dams and collecting 268,012 observations, we now have a massive dataset to analyse methane andRead more
Why read a story when you can jump into it and live the story for yourself? Immerse yourself in a StoryMap about carbon breakdown in wetlands. Who are we? Savitri, Hosna, Ali, and Nicola are undergraduate students from Deakin University who are interested in innovative approaches to help the environment. What is a story map?Read more
At the Blue Carbon Lab, we are happy to host volunteers and interns who visit the lab to learn about coastal wetlands and gain skills in field and laboratory techniques for blue carbon research. Learn about one of our current volunteers, Savitri Thurairatnam: I have been working with the Blue Carbon Lab on and offRead more
It has not been until recently that seaweeds, also known as macroalgae, are getting greater consideration as a substantial source of blue carbon. They have been previously overlooked because they grow on hard surfaces, and therefore don’t facilitate the accretion of carbon within their habitat, like accreting coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass meadows, andRead more
When Dr. Maria del Mar Palacios led Blue Carbon Lab teammates and volunteers to the start of the Citizen Science project in Feb 2020, we did not anticipate it to be such a bumpy road with a big boom event at its end in Feb 2021. We endured through one of the world’s strictest COVID-19Read more
Guest Author: Dr. Stacey Trevathan-Tackett So does that mean you’re the tea bag lady? Yes, I suppose it does. In 2017, the global initiative TeaComposition H2O began with the aim of better understanding decomposition processes in wetland and aquatic ecosystems. Over 100 participants from 30 countries joined the initiative, deploying green and rooibos Lipton teaRead more
