As of Friday morning, the fire has not yet been extinguished.
“It’s almost certain there will have been losses of some individuals from threatened species during the fire,” DoC Hauraki-Waikato-Taranaki operations director Tinaka Mearns said.
Whangamarino is an internationally recognised wetland of ecological significance covering almost 7000ha of swamps, fens, peat bogs and open water around the Whangamarino and Maramarua rivers.
Department of Conservation Hauraki-Waikato-Taranaki operations director Tinaka Mearns.
“The area where the fire is burning is known as the central bog and is the largest raised peat bog in Whangamarino, one of the few remaining in the Southern Hemisphere,” Mearns said.
Mearns said the peat bog supported the greatest diversity of threatened native wetland species including the black mudfish or waikaka, Australasian bitter or matuku-hūrepo, and spotless crake or pūweto.
The bog is also the only known location of the critically endangered swamp helmet orchid.
Mearns said thankfully, the swamp helmet orchid’s main habitat had not burned.
“If these peat bogs were all badly burned, it’s possible the swamp orchid could go extinct.”
The swamp helmet orchid (Corybas carsei) is critically endangered and found only at Whangamarino Wetland near Te Kauwhata. Photo / Supplied
Though it was still “too early” to assess the extent of the fire damage and its impact on the ecosystem, Mearns said DoC would assess the damage and plan for recovery once the fire was extinguished.
“We know the fire has burnt through significant amounts of wetland vegetation which means the loss of habitat for threatened species that rely on the wetland.”
According to Mearns, the greatest damage could be to the organic soils in the peat bog that have built up from thousands of years of decaying plant materials.
“Whangamarino is the second-largest bog and swamp complex in the North Island and stores a significant amount of carbon,” she said.
“This fire will be releasing significant amounts of the stored carbon back into the environment.”
Since Monday, 1039ha of Whangamarino Wetland has gone up in flames. Photo / Malisha Kumar
Mearns said during the fire, the wetland would have lost a huge biomass of the key plants that accumulated and stored carbon.
“The carbon in these wetlands has taken thousands of years to build up, and could take hundreds or thousands of years to recover.”
For now, Mearns said DoC was focused on supporting Fenz to protect the remaining peat boglands in the Whangamarino Wetland complex.
“This will be critical to support the re-establishment and recovery of threatened species and habitat as it provides a seed source for vegetation to recover from.”
Whangamarino is highly significant for iwi (Waikato-Tainui) and mana whenua (Ngā Muka, Ngāti Naho and Ngāti Tamaoho).
On Tuesday, Fire and Emergency NZ incident controller Mark Tinworth said crews were working collaboratively with DoC and mana whenua to ensure cultural and environmental values were considered in firefighters’ tactics.
“This is a really beautiful part of the country with considerable environmental value and we’re doing our best to prevent it from being destroyed,” Tinworth said.
Maryana Garcia is a Hamilton-based reporter covering breaking news in Waikato. She previously wrote for the Rotorua Daily Post and Bay of Plenty Times.
