Frank Film07:00, May 28 2021
FRANK FILM
The West Coast s Ōkārito Lagoon is an ancient and pristine wetland, but New Zealand’s largest unmodified wetland is on fragile ground.
Sunrise over the Ōkārito Lagoon. It is an ancient and pristine landscape, stretching 3200 hectares across estuary waters and brackish inlets, home to more than 70 species of birds, many threatened. On a flat-bottomed boat Paula Sheridan and Swade Finch, owners of Ōkārito Eco Boat tours, slide through watery channels shrouded by rainforest beneath the rumpled outline of Aoraki Mt Cook and Mt Tasman. A lone kōtuku gazes through its reflection in search of food, one of a resident population of about eight to 10 that stay here year round.