Supporting Canada’s Coasts Can Benefit Climate
and Economy
Restoring Drained Marshes Will Provide Ecosystem Services Worth Over $14,500
per hectare, says Research
Montreal
/ Nairobi, 03 May 2012 – Reversing the degradation of coastal ecosystems
in Canada
and elsewhere can play an important role in tackling climate change, while
bringing additional benefits to biodiversity and the economies of coastal
communities.
This was the central message delivered by the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) during an event held by the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD) in Montreal.
From Canada
to Cancun, coastal ecosystems store high
levels of carbon in their soil. This so-called "Blue Carbon" is found
in tidal salt marshes, grassy meadows subject to the rise and fall of ocean
tides, and their tropical cousins, mangrove swamps.
Meadows of "sea grasses", permanently
submerged by shallow ocean waters, also are important Blue Carbon sinks. All
these ecosystems can store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for millennia, making
an important contribution to efforts to tackle climate change.
However, if these ecosystems are degraded, the stored carbon risks
being released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
Despite Canada's
cold climate, the country’s salt marshes store as much carbon as in warmer
climes, explains Dr. Gail Chmura, a coastal researcher at McGill University,
who spoke at the UNEP side event.
But much of the marsh area in eastern Canada, including the coasts of New
Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec has been drained
for use in agriculture, notes Chmura.
Studies by her research group show that ecological
functions of drained marshes can be restored, along with the carbon sink.
In fact, Chmura and colleagues have calculated that
the restoration of Canada's
drained agricultural marshes will provide ecosystem services worth $14,535 per
hectare and a renewed sink for carbon dioxide equivalent to 6 per cent of Canada's original
commitment for reductions under the Kyoto Protocol.
UNEP and IUCN note that the degradation of coastal
ecosystems means more than just a reduction in the amount of carbon they store.
Other ecosystem services provided by seagrasses and mangroves, such as
protection from storms and tsunamis, habitat for fish and wildlife, support of
coastal fisheries, and local livelihoods of coastal inhabitants, are also
adversely affected by their decline.
UNEP’s Blue Carbon Initiative supports scientific
research into blue carbon in coastal ecosystems as well as the valuable
ecosystem services they provide. UNEP also supports economically viable
projects that monetize carbon and ecosystem services in order to better manage
these coastal ecosystems. The Blue Carbon Initiative has thus far supported
research into blue carbon in critical ecosystems in Africa,
and has raised the profile of blue carbon globally with various reports and
scientific conferences.
The event also highlighted the need for newer and
more accurate ways of measuring the carbon stored in coastal ecosystems in Canada and
beyond. Such information can support
countries in planning national strategies for climate change adaptation and
mitigation.
For
more information, please contact:
Elisabeth
Guilbaud-Cox, Deputy Director, UNEP Regional Office for North
America, Tel: +1 (202) 974-1307 or E-mail:
elisabeth.guilbaud-cox (at) unep.org
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