Wetlands are quite possibly the most unloved and misunderstood ecosystems in the country.
About 90 percent of New Zealand's wetlands have been destroyed, and yet they're an essential force in the fight against climate change, sequestering more carbon than our forests.
Someone who knows all too well how precious wetlands are, is Karen Denyer.
She's worked as an ecological consultant for over 20 years, much of it in wetland ecology, and is the New Zealand representative for the World Wetland Network and the executive officer at the National Wetland Trust.
Together with conservationist Monica Peters, she's written Life in the Shallows: The Wetlands of New Zealand.
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