Melissa Rodgers: ‘We must urgently restore blue carbon ecosystems’

Melissa Rodgers loves a challenge. A dedicated long-distance runner in her spare time, Melissa regularly competes in 50km races, with the occasional 100km event thrown in. She once rode her bike a whopping 6,800km from New York to San Francisco to raise money for charity. 

To say she’s determined is an understatement.

Melissa has set her sights on a new challenge and while it isn’t an ultra-endurance event, it’s just as ambitious. As the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s Director of Strategic Initiatives, she’s developing a new program to unlock the blue carbon potential of Great Barrier Reef ecosystems.

What does that mean in practice? Well, our oceans, coral reefs and connected coastal ecosystems like seagrass meadows, mangroves and wetlands play an important role in removing carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. Known as “carbon sinks”, these diverse habitats act like enormous sponges, continually cleaning our air by absorbing carbon and storing it internally in a process known as sequestration.

Land-based ecosystems like rainforests also act as carbon sinks, but the “blue” ocean and coastal ecosystems supercharge the process, storing carbon at a much faster rate. Our Great Barrier Reef ecosystem is one of the world’s most powerful blue carbon sites and plays an important role in mitigating the impacts of climate change.

“Functioning blue carbon ecosystems are critically important to support coral reefs,” Melissa says. “But current blue carbon restoration work is small-scale, fragmented and largely focused on carbon sequestration rather than the full suite of environmental benefits on offer. There is an urgent need to develop large-scale, investment-ready blue carbon ecosystem restoration projects that deliver environmental, cultural and social-economic benefits.”

The program will use on-Reef wildlife sanctuaries to trial new approaches and technologies for protecting and restoring blue carbon ecosystems. The first two on-ground projects will focus on restoring coastal wetlands and protecting and restoring seagrass meadows.

“Being able to work with some amazing scientists, who are at the cutting edge of this research, to create novel pilot projects has been a lot of fun,” Melissa says.

“The program has allowed me the opportunity to bring together researchers, other environmental NGOs, investors, landholders and Traditional Owners to create a program that we believe will have significant benefits for the Reef and for local communities. It’s been a real privilege.”

Working with a range of people with different backgrounds and perspectives comes naturally to Melissa, whose family moved between Sri Lanka, Malaysia and the Philippines when she was a child.

“The place that stays with me the most is the Philippines, because we travelled so much while we were living there so I got to see a lot of the world and how other people live,” she says.

“It made me realise just how big the world is and how different everyone’s lives are, so it made me want to be sure to appreciate my world and to try everything.”

Eventually her family put down roots in Brisbane when Melissa was a teenager and a trip to Mon Repos Turtle Centre near Bundaberg inspired her to become a marine biologist.

“Being able to watch female turtles heave themselves up a beach in the middle of the night, then spend hours digging the perfect nest for their eggs, is an incredible experience,” she says.

“Watching baby turtle hatchlings dig themselves out of nests and begin their journey to the ocean while navigating birds and sharks waiting for snacks, and knowing that if they are lucky they will be the one in about a thousand baby turtles that will survive to maturity, is just as fascinating. Nature is brutal and it’s beautiful, and I love the contradiction of that.”