For this reason, rehabilitating wetlands has wide-ranging effects, increasing the capacity of large tracts of land to help fight climate change.

To this end, a project in the Murray region has rehabilitated enough wetlands to fill almost 2000 football ovals.

Involving 26 landholders and 41 wetland sites, the Murray Wetland Carbon Storage project has restored 3750 hectares of wetland, far exceeding the original target of 2000ha.

The six-year project aims to improve diversity and increase the capacity of wetlands to store carbon.

A fit-for-purpose funding model through the Australian Government has enabled landholders to carry out on-ground works tailored to each site, including revegetation, changed grazing regimes, exclusion fencing and weed control.

Among participating landholders are farmers Bill and Cecile Nixon, who fenced off an 8ha wetland area on their Savernake property.

“We wanted to better manage the area to encourage native vegetation growth and to bring woodland and wetland birds back to the site,” Cecile said.

At Balldale, Ross and Lea McDonald had a similar aim when they fenced an 82ha wetland to manage stock grazing. The wetland has responded well, with an improved cover of wetland plant and increased water bird population.

The project has also produced a range of educational and community engagement resources, such as interpretive signage, bird hides and community events.

As these resources will tell you, wetlands are a powerful contributor to global carbon storage: despite occupying just 8 per cent of the land, inland wetlands contain 33 per cent of global soil carbon. 

Interestingly, they are also the largest source of the greenhouse gas methane, but these emissions become negligible over the long time frames relevant to climate change. 

In inland NSW, rain-filled wetlands are common in agricultural areas, where they are threatened by livestock grazing, vegetation clearing, cropping, pests and weeds. 

Deakin University’s Blue Carbon Lab has found that works such as fencing and revegetation significantly improves carbon stocks, regardless of the degree of degradation. In fact, carbon storage capacity is restored in as little as five years, and increases further the longer the time since restoration.

With that ability to bounce back, it looks as if the humble wetland could be a key player in addressing some large global challenges.