Blue Carbon Blog

Mangroves- An Ecosystem In Peril

2012-02-05T03:56:00.000-05:00

http://www.eurasiareview.com/03022012-mangroves-a-non-edible-biofuel-in-peril-oped/

Mangroves: A Non-Edible Biofuel In Peril – OpEd

3 February 2012/ by Naseem Sheikh/ Eurasia Review
The escalating and inelastic demand for energy to fuel economic activities exerts pressures on its limited supply. The skyrocketing prices of petroleum products results in the depletion of non-renewable energy sources and the continued investigation and use of renewable and innovation results. Research shows that energy demand is expected to increase three fold by 2050.

The concept of using human food to create ethanol is on full bloom, but environmentalists have warned that the bio fuel craze can do as much or more damage to the environment as dirty fossil fuels, citing the Amazon Rainforest is being destroyed every year to produce bio-fuel crops. So now we see the consequences in Africa. A market has been created by British and EU laws requiring the blending of rising amounts of bio fuels into petrol and diesel.

Upon this backdrop, Mangrove forests can appear as light beam in such a darkening situation because they have the hidden blessing for production of bio fuel. We must search other sources rather than food material, so forget corn, soy, sugar cane, palm and even jatropha.

Halophytes can be productive sources of biomass energy. For example, Salicornia seed is 32% oil by mass. Halophytes flourish in arid land and can be irrigated with seawater, making them suitable for bio fuel development. Dominating many coastlines in tropical and subtropical areas, mangroves are a bridge between terrestrial and marine environments. They are also extremely productive ecosystems.

The most extensive area of mangroves is found in Asia, followed by Africa and South America. According to the FAO, the total mangrove area is around 150,000 km2. Four countries (Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria, and Australia) account for about 41% percent of all mangroves. Pakistan’s coastline covers about 700 kilometres of Sindh and Balochistan provinces (almost only 8% of total forestry).

Salicornia is a juicy plant used as bio fuel has a higher recovery and quality of oil than other crops, the plant has no direct competition with food crops. There are experimental fields of Salicornia in Ras al-Zawr (Saudi Arabia), Eritrea (Northeast Africa) and Sonora (Northwest Mexico) aimed at the production of biodiesel. The company responsible for the Sonora trials (Global Seawater) claims that between 225 and 250 gallons of BQ-9000 biodiesel can be produced per hectare (approximately 2.5 acres) of salicornia and is promoting a $35 million scheme to create a 12,000-acre (49 km2) salicornia farm in Bahia de Kino.

Robert Glenn, a plant biologist at University of Arizona, deserves credit for demonstrating the use of Salicornia as bio fuels. Later, Jelte Rozema and Timothy Flowers, scientists at NASA, said that Glenn’s work is of high significance. Glenn has claimed that Salicornia could be grown on 480,000 square miles of unused land across the globe. Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and Mexico are already running trials to examine Salicornia’s potential as bio fuels.

Scientists at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland have been trying to fill the skies with algae and explore new means to create alternative energy source for commercial aviation. It seems like Bilal Bomani, a scientist at NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, has tied the future of space exploration to sub-aquatic life. He is also using salicornia for his experimental work.

Salicornia is also an eco-friendly plantation as it absorbs carbon dioxide. It is for these qualities that salicornia is often referred to as ‘miracle plant’. It is indeed producing miracles in some parts of the world and being rapidly adopted by countries with vast coastlines and saline water.

Nevertheless, caution must be used.

Mangrove forests are one of the world’s most threatened tropical ecosystems. Mangrove forests require stable sea levels for long-term survival. They are therefore extremely sensitive to current rising sea levels caused by global warming and climate change. More than 35% of the world’s mangroves are already gone. The figure is as high as 50% in countries such as India, the Philippines, and Vietnam, while in the Americas they are being cleared at a rate faster than tropical rainforests.

Freshwater diversions can also lead to mangroves drying out, if salinity becomes too high, the mangroves cannot survive.

Oil pollution can smother mangrove roots and suffocate the trees. These communities also collect medicinal plants from mangrove ecosystems and use mangrove leaves as animal fodder. Recently, the forests have also been commercially harvested for pulp, wood chip, and charcoal production.

We must continue to evolve bio fuels to incorporate feed stocks that are not only sustainable, but actually regenerative and can restore the ecosystems where they are found. Mangrove is a source of timber, fuel, railroad ties and tannin in the tropics. Having a short crop rotation period makes red mangroves a popular choice for posts and poles in managed forests in Malaysia. In Asia, commercial mangrove production is necessary for the construction of boats, houses and furniture.

Productive steps must be taken in increase the population and protective function of mangroves, but also provide sustainable and value-added livelihoods to the poor coastal population. Many efforts are being done to establish mangrove plantations along the entire coast for rehabilitation purposes, 19,000 ha of Avicennia marina and Rhizophora mucronata have been rehabilated in Sindh and Balochistan in the 1990 within a collaboration between the Sindh Government and IUCN and around 17,000 ha have been restored in the Indus delta with support of the World Bank in 1999.

Senior Advisor on coastal ecosystems with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Tahir Qureshi, has extended help in rehabilitating 30,000 hectares of mangroves along the southern coast on the Arabian Sea, including in Baluchistan. Some mangrove areas have been converted to cultivated land prior to 1995. After losses in mangrove extent that may have occurred have been balanced by the natural regeneration and reforestation efforts, consequently no major changes appear to have occurred over the last ten years.

In other developing countries mangroves are being exploited and shipped for pulp and particleboard. The renewed mangroves would serve as a carbon sink and source of bio ethanol fuel to reduce carbon dioxide emission and generate good income to alleviate poverty and mitigate climate change. More than 500,000 individuals would benefit, including many in the transport sector. They would not only help revolutionize poverty but also serve as raw material for some industries and exports.

Although aquatic plants may have less commercial potential than do terrestrial plants, future advances in technology may open promising doors for the economic use of harvested aquatic weeds in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Mangrove Forest Issues in Tanzania's Rufiji Delta

2012-02-02T08:05:00.000-05:00

Government officials in Tanzania are concerned about the intrusion and increasing demand for fresh plots as local farmers are driven to new areas as increasing levels of salt water is pushed inland. They claim that the random forest clearing carried out by some farmers is harming the conservation of local biodiversity.

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/salty-soils-drive-tanzanian-farmers-into-forest-reserve

Salty soils drive Tanzanian farmers into forest reserve

31 Jan 2012/ Kizito Makoye/ Alertnet

Jumanne Kikumbi, a Rufiji delta village chairman, says farmers have lived in the region's mangrove forests for decades. ALERTNET/Kizito Makoye

RUFIJI, Tanzania (AlertNet) - Thousands of farmers in Tanzania’s Rufiji Delta have been accused of destroying mangroves as they search for new land to grow their rice crops, which are being damaged by salt-water intrusion.

The salt water, pushed inland by surging tides from the Indian Ocean, is damaging fields of rice seedlings. Farmers in several villages in the river basin, which sprawls across the east African nation’s southern half, have seen yields fall as a result.

With thousands of hectares affected by saline intrusion, it is becoming harder for the inhabitants of Salale ward to earn a living from rice cultivation, which has been the mainstay of the local economy.

“It is the poor who suffer,” said Henri Laswai, an agricultural expert at Sokoine University in Morogogo. He attributed the problem to worsening climate change impacts.

Scientists have linked the growing problem of saltwater intrusion at least partially with climate change, as sea levels rise. Higher seas inundate wetlands and other low-lying lands, intensify flooding, and increase the salinity of rivers and groundwater tables, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In the Rufiji Delta, farmers have been moving away from the increasingly salty rivers, where most paddy fields are located, further out into the delta in search of fresh water and better land. But some are encroaching on protected mangrove swamps in their search for new, fertile fields.

The scramble for land has created conflict between Rufiji residents and government authorities who want to stop local people invading protected sites.

Saline intrusion has forced farmers in Nyamisati village in Salale ward, around 250 km from Dar es Salaam, to move to areas such as Bunga and Mchinga where the soil is still very fertile.

YIELDS DOWN A THIRD

“We have experienced one of the lowest crop yields in our history this year. Imagine - one hectare hardly gives you 20 bags of rice these days, whereas we used to get up to 30 bags of rice before,” said 76-year-old Swaleh Jongo, a farmer in Nyamisati. “This is caused by non other than salt water, which is harming our crops.”

The situation has forced farmers to clear some mangrove trees in the delta to find uncontaminated land where they can plant rice seedlings, according to Jongo.

“If we don’t do this, how do you think we are going to feed our families?” he asked.

Most households in Salale that have relocated their fields have to travel long distances to the new paddy fields they have carved out of the mangrove forest. As a result, they often build temporary accommodation in which they stay during the main farming season.

Government officials are concerned about the intrusion and increasing demand for fresh plots, saying that random forest clearing by farmers is harming the conservation of local biodiversity. Such clearing also contributes to climate-changing carbon emissions, releasing carbon stored in forests.

In the past two to three decades, over 5,000 hectares of Rufiji mangrove forest have been lost to rice cultivation, according to a recent remote-sensing study conducted by environmental group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in collaboration with Sokoine University.

“We are trying to educate Rufiji dwellers on the need to protect the forest around them - that is why we encourage them to replant mangrove trees in their paddy fields,” said Zacharia Kitale of the donor-funded Mangrove Management Project (MMP), run by the Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources.

EVICTION CONTROVERSY

Last October, the MMP conducted a five-day eviction exercise in a bid to protect the mangrove forests from further destruction due to increasing human activity.

The decision to remove paddy farmers from protected land in the mangrove forests caused an uproar. Villagers whose temporary huts were set ablaze argued that they and their ancestors had used and at times lived in the forest for generations.

The row has cast questions over plans to support community management of the region’s mangrove forests under the U.N.-backed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) scheme, which would link forest protection efforts with global carbon markets.

In November, WWF’s marine and climate change advisor, Jason Rubens, told Tanzania’s Business Standard newspaper that the land controversy could hamper such work in the Rufiji Delta as communities might suspect that any mangrove management initiative is part of a strategy to evict them from the delta.

Many farmers seem oblivious of the 2002 Forest Act that prohibits human activities in protected forests, including Rufiji, parts of which form an internationally recognised reserve. But other farmers say they follow the restrictions and are not contravening the rules.

Saidi Ali, who has a 10-hectare (25 acre) farm in the delta, defends the decision by local people to cultivate rice in unprotected forest zones.

“We respect the government,” he said. “That is why no one has dared to touch those areas we traditionally know are protected forests, like Kikale and Msindaji. But (that does not include) the whole of Rufiji.”

Changing weather patterns – including reduced rainfall in higher altitude zones - are also shrinking the area of the delta land suitable for cultivation, according to Ali. Paje, Ngazini and other higher-altitude locations, he said, had been traditional rice-growing places for centuries until recent decades.

“These days nobody goes there because when you plant rice, seedlings die from shortage of water and poor soils,” he said.

SPREADING PROBLEM

The situation is likely to get worse. Officials from the state-run Rufiji Basin Development Authority (RUBADA) expect salt-water intrusion to damage more land in the valley.

“We have done many studies, and they have proved that this problem will certainly spread, threatening our food security,” explained its chief executive Aloyce Masanja.

More than 90 percent of households in the Rufiji Delta and its floodplain - which have a combined population of more than 150,000 - make their living from rice farming.

They supplement their income with fishing and extraction of wetland products, such as weeds for making baskets. But in the past decade, population growth and unsustainable resource use, including cutting down trees for fuel wood and charcoal, is putting these activities at risk too.

Villagers fear their dwindling rice yields, coupled with government disruption of their forest farming activities, will force many to depend on food handouts this season.

“We invested massively in rice, but because of salt water, our fields are turning red,” said Jummanne Mwalekwa, a farmer in Nyamisati. “We can barely see the salt content in the soil, yet there is nothing we can do but to vacate the fields... Now the government says we have invaded its forests. Where can we go?”

Since the furore over the evictions, the government has eased its law enforcement efforts - at least for the time being - and is allowing farmers in the mangrove forests to continue their activities while it collects more data on their environmental impact.

MMP director Zawadi Mbwambo is hopeful that preliminary studies for forest protection projects will continue after the dispute is sorted out - especially given that the Norwegian government has already injected around $5 million to support local efforts to tackle climate change.

Kizito Makoye is a journalist based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This story is part of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

Not All Wetlands Are Created Equal

2012-01-26T16:30:00.000-05:00

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/not-all-wetlands-are-created-equal/

Not All Wetlands Are Created Equal

24 January 2012/ by Rachel Nuwer/ Green Blog

A mangrove restoration along along Bahia Salinas in southwestern Puerto Rico. It can take decades for restored ecosystems to recover the bio-geochemical functions lost during ecosystem degradation. Bill Hubick

To many, it’s a familiar scenario: a strip mall suddenly pops up in what was once a desolate quagmire or boggy boondock.

But people are coming to realize that these seemingly wasted plots where land meets water provide a valuable ecological service. In addition to nurturing biodiversity, wetlands purify water, produce fish, store carbon dioxide that would otherwise contribute to global warming, and protect shorelines from floods, storm surges and erosion.

Since the early 20th century, development has claimed over half the wetlands in North America, Europe, Australia and China. To repair the damage from those construction binges and regain the benefits of wetlands, restoration has become a booming business.

Yet new research calls into question whether manmade versions can ever compensate for wetlands buried beneath parking lots and subdivisions. In an article published on Tuesday in PLoS Biology, scientists write that restoration efforts often fall short of returning wetlands to their former biological complexity and functioning.

“In traditional restoration, people repair hydrology, put in some plants, and after a few years say the wetlands are good,” said David Moreno-Mateos, a wetland ecologist at the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve at Stanford University and the lead author of the paper. “But if you look at what’s really going on down there, you see the processes are not recovering.”

“One of the results from this study is that we need to undertake more specific restoration measures focused on recovering processes, not just nice, beautiful wetlands with ducks,” said Dr. Moreno-Mateos, who conducted the research at the University of California, Berkleley.

Before the 1960s, many people perceived wetlands as dank places to be drained or avoided, Dr. Moreno-Mateos said. But in the last 20 years, the governments of the United States Canada, and Mexico have poured over $70 billion into restoring more than seven million acres of wetlands.

Some developers deploy the strategy of promising to create or restore wetlands in one location in exchange for getting permission to bulldoze wetlands in another location. In theory, this sounds fair, but the results fall short, Dr. Moreno-Mateos said.

To quantify the success of restoration projects, the researchers performed a meta-analysis of 621 restored and created wetland sites around the world. Most of the sites were in the United States, and some restoration plots dated back around 100 years. They compared the sites with 556 natural wetlands that served as reference points.

The researchers found that hydrology seemed to recover immediately after restoration, but results varied in areas like the recovery of animals, plants and nutrients. Even after 100 years of restoration, the wetlands recovered only 77 percent of their original flora and fauna, on average.

Within five years animals like birds and bats returned, as did flying insects like midges. Other macroinvertebrates like water fleas took a bit longer, around 5 to 10 years, and these communities usually did not reach their original levels of richness or abundance.

Plants were even slower to recover. On average, they took 30 years to return but still remained less biodiverse and abundant up to 100 years after restoration.

The plant lag may be related to recovering carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus storage. After 50 years, carbon levels were still below reference levels, and it took at least 30 years for nitrogen to return to normal. All in all, restored wetlands regained an average of 74 percent of their biogeochemical components by comparison with the reference sites.

“When we lose wetlands we’re losing something we won’t recover for years,” Dr. Moreno-Mateos said. “When people develop that huge shopping mall, it will take centuries to restore the functions we had before.”

Some wetlands did recover faster than others, depending on hydrology, size and climate. The more water flowing through a site, the more quickly it bounces back to reference values. Larger sites also fared better than smaller plots, and the warmer the temperature, the more rapid the recovery. “In some warm climates, things go fast, but cold climates take forever,” Dr. Moreno-Mateos said.

On average, however, the researchers describe current restoration practices as “slow and incomplete.” Dr. Moreno-Mateos plans to investigate the connection between the slow recovery of carbon storage and plants, and to seek a specific method that will expedite their restoration.

Although the results are not surprising for scientists, he said, this is the first time a study has placed the problem into a global context.

“Developers are kind of powerful people,” he said, “but carbon is really important for global warming, so I think it’s going to be controversial.”

Restored wetlands rarely equal conditions of original wetlands

2012-01-25T15:30:00.000-05:00

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/01/24/study-shows-restored-wetlands-rarely-equal-condition-of-original-wetlands/

Restored wetlands like this pond converted from agricultural use in Aragon, Spain, may look natural, but a new study shows that it can take hundreds of years for restored wetlands to accumulate the plant assemblages and carbon resources of a natural, undamaged wetland. Credit: David Moreno-Mateos/UC Berkeley

Study shows restored wetlands rarely equal condition of original wetlands

24 January 2012/ by Robert Sanders/ Media Relations

BERKELEY —Wetland restoration is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in the United States that aims to create ecosystems similar to those that disappeared over the past century. But a new analysis of restoration projects shows that restored wetlands seldom reach the quality of a natural wetland.

“Once you degrade a wetland, it doesn’t recover its normal assemblage of plants or its rich stores of organic soil carbon, which both affect natural cycles of water and nutrients, for many years,” said David Moreno-Mateos, a University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral fellow. “Even after 100 years, the restored wetland is still different from what was there before, and it may never recover.”

Moreno-Mateos’s analysis calls into question a common mitigation strategy exploited by land developers: create a new wetland to replace a wetland that will be destroyed and the land put to other uses. At a time of accelerated climate change caused by increased carbon entering the atmosphere, carbon storage in wetlands is increasingly important, he said.

“Wetlands accumulate a lot of carbon, so when you dry up a wetland for agricultural use or to build houses, you are just pouring this carbon into the atmosphere,” he said. “If we keep degrading or destroying wetlands, for example through the use of mitigation banks, it is going to take centuries to recover the carbon we are losing.”

A mangrove forest damaged during the construction of an oil pipeline in the floodplain of the Grijalva river in Tabasco, Mexico. Even after restoration, this wetland could take centuries to recover. Credit: David Moreno-Mateos/UC Berkeley

The study showed that wetlands tend to recover most slowly if they are in cold regions, if they are small – less than 100 contiguous hectares, or 250 acres, in area – or if they are disconnected from the ebb and flood of tides or river flows.

“These context dependencies aren’t necessarily surprising, but this paper quantifies them in ways that could guide decisions about restoration, or about whether to damage wetlands in the first place,” said coauthor Mary Power, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology.

Moreno-Mateos, Power and their colleagues will publish their analysis in the Jan. 24 issue of PLoS (Public Library of Science) Biology.

Wetlands provide many societal benefits, Moreno-Mateos noted, such as biodiversity conservation, fish production, water purification, erosion control and carbon storage.

He found, however, that restored wetlands contained about 23 percent less carbon than untouched wetlands, while the variety of native plants was 26 percent lower, on average, after 50 to 100 years of restoration. While restored wetlands may look superficially similar – and the animal and insect populations may be similar, too – the plants take much longer to return to normal and establish the carbon resources in the soil that make for a healthy ecosystem.

Moreno-Mateos noted that numerous studies have shown that specific wetlands recover slowly, but his meta-analysis “might be a proof that this is happening in most wetlands.”

“To prevent this, preserve the wetland, don’t degrade the wetland,” he said.

Moreno-Mateos, who obtained his Ph.D. while studying wetland restoration in Spain, conducted a meta-analysis of 124 wetland studies monitoring work at 621 wetlands around the world and comparing them with natural wetlands. Nearly 80 percent were in the United States and some were restored more than 100 years ago, reflecting of a long-standing American interest in restoration and a common belief that it’s possible to essentially recreate destroyed wetlands. Half of all wetlands in North America, Europe, China and Australia were lost during the 20th century, he said.

Natural processes have inundated this mangrove forest with sand. Photo by David Moreno-Mateos/UC Berkeley.

Though Moreno-Mateos found that, on average, restored wetlands are 25 percent less productive than natural wetlands, there was much variation. For example, wetlands in boreal and cold temperate forests tend to recover more slowly than do warm wetlands. One review of wetland restoration projects in New York state, for example, found that “after 55 years, barely 50 percent of the organic matter had accumulated on average in all these wetlands” compared to what was there before, he said.

“Current thinking holds that many ecosystems just reach an alternative state that is different, and you never will recover the original,” he said.

In future studies, he will explore whether the slower carbon accumulation is due to a slow recovery of the native plant community or invasion by non-native plants.

Coauthors with Moreno-Mateos and Power are Francisco A. Comin of the Department of Conservation of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Restoration at the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology in Zaragoza, Spain; and Roxana Yockteng of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France. Moreno-Mateos recently accepted a position as the restoration fellow at Stanford University’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve.

The work was supported by the Spanish Ministry for Innovation and Science, the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology and the National Center for Earth Surface Dynamics of the U.S. National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center.

The Blue Carbon Strategy

2012-01-25T04:21:00.000-05:00

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/5202/full

The blue carbon strategy

23 January 2012 /by Mico Tatalovic/ Cosmos Online

Mangrove forests, seagrass beds and salt marshes possess a huge carbon storage capacity, which scientists say can be used to mitigate climate change. Known as blue carbon, this resource could one day be quantified and sold on international carbon trading markets.

Together with seagrass beds and salt marshes, mangrove forests such as the one pictured account for 70% of the ocean's carbon storage capacity.

Mangrove forests, seagrass beds and salt marshes cover only around 0.5% of the seabed, but account for some 70% of the ocean's carbon storage capacity.

These three marine environments soak up and store carbon dioxide in their biomass and sediments, where they keep it locked up for centuries. Together with the carbon held in the rest of the ocean, this is known as 'blue carbon'.

Blue carbon is also the name of a new strategic approach to make use of the large carbon capture and storage potential of coastal ecosystems. If this carbon could be quantified and sold on international carbon trading markets, this could help fund preservation and restoration projects, which would also help capture more carbon and ease the effects of climate change.

Apart from sequestering carbon quicker than the same area of rainforests can, these three ecosystems provide other 'eco-services' which are especially valuable for vulnerable coastal communities in developing countries. These include food and energy, protecting shorelines from flood and tsunamis, filtering water, as well as recreation and tourism.

But aquaculture, agricultural development and pollution are now responsible for loss of these ecosystems at a rate of up to four times that of rainforest loss. Around 20% of mangroves and more than 50% of seagrass ecosystems have been lost in the last 25 years, and salt marshes are being lost at a rate 1 to 2% per year.

Because of the huge amount of carbon stored in mangroves, the global emissions from mangrove deforestation account for around 10% of all emissions from deforestation, despite making up just 0.7% of tropical forest area.

"Some of the coastal ecosystems are 50 or even up to 75 times more efficient than a same type of area of land in terms of sequestering carbon, and that's a wonderful opportunity for us, but it's one we're squandering," says Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of the Global Marine and Polar Programme at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) based in Switzerland. "We're doing a lot silly things in the ocean, we're doing land reclamation projects, we're doing very destructive things in the marine environment and if we stop those and actually start restoring, then we'll at least help our carbon footprint."

Last month, a new research initiative was launched at the Eye on Earth summit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates to understand how the blue carbon strategy would work. This will feed into the negotiations for the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20 in Brazil later this year.

According to the organisations driving it, Conservation International, IUCN and UNESCO, this is the first global initiative to mitigate climate change through the conservation and restoration of coastal marine ecosystems. "Blue carbon is an opportunity or us, first to take into account what we as humans are doing to the environment, [and] an opportunity for us to be able to factor those resources and in turn use this as a platform for solutions," Rolph Payet, special adviser to the president of the Republic of Seychelles, an island country in the Indian Ocean, and president of University of Seychelles, told the summit.

Blue carbon aims to link eco-services, including but not exclusively carbon storage, with market-based payment mechanisms to help mitigate and adapt to climate change, conserve biodiversity, and ensure sustainable delivery of those ecosystem services to people.

But one of the key problems with linking economics of blue carbon trading with marine conservation is a lack of comparable baseline data on blue carbon. This 'data deficiency' is a key barrier to effective planning and decision-making in the coastal and marine environment, according to a white paper prepared for the summit. It also hampers the inclusion of these environments into international conventions and financing mechanisms that exist for land habitats, such as forests through the U.N.'s Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD).

"There's a big gap right now with basic data," says Sylvia Earle, founder and chairman of the National Geographic Society in the U.S. "You can't put a finger on it [the problem] until you know what you've got, but that's no excuse to ignore it, and we had been ignoring it."

Lundin agrees, "We're just getting started in the accounting process, in trying to understand the science behind it and, from then on, trying to find policy options."

There are no internationally accepted methodologies for assessing carbon sequestration by salt marshes, sea grasses and 'below-ground' parts of mangroves. And there is still uncertainty about the exact sequestration rates for the three ecosystems.

"The key is knowing. It's identifying problems. You can't really solve a problem until you know you've got one," Earle says. And according to her, the whole of the ocean is a large part of the environmental data gap problem, which was, together with sharing existing data, the focus of the summit in Abu Dhabi.

And the problem is especially acute in developing countries. In his message to the summit, the prime minister of Kiribati, an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean, H.E. Beretitenti Anote Tong said, "For us in small, developing countries and indeed for most of the Pacific island countries ... environmental information is a scarce commodity. Even where such information does exist, it is often of limited value because of its poor quality."

So, the working group on blue carbon, brought together by the summit, will start developing new scientific methodologies and start filling the data gaps. This will include a US$4.5 million Global Environment Facility (GEF)-funded research project due to start late this year, and new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines on greenhouse gas inventories, to be launched in 2013, that would include blue carbon.

It will also help bring together existing initiatives and pilot projects currently taking place in the Asia Pacific region, West Africa and Arabian Peninsula. One goal is to develop an interactive global map of blue carbon projects to build a network of practitioners and experts and to gather the lessons learned.

Another is to use citizen science to help map habitats and later provide data openly online. "We need more practical examples, we need to link science and knowledge with the practical application," says Lundin.

The blue carbon initiative, which has its origins in two reports published in 2009, already claims a success in getting the issue into the public domain and raising awareness of the importance of blue carbon. If all goes well, in the next three to five years they hope to have examples of new data being used in practical decision-making, demonstrate the value of coastal systems to carbon markets, identify a global set of priority areas for conservation, and develop a policy framework easing payment for ecosystem services.

And while for many in the West, blue carbon may be an opportunity to offset their carbon emissions, for small island states in the Pacific and Caribbean it may be a matter of survival. "Our ocean is the source of our livelihood," Tong said. "For us, sustainable management of our ocean is matter of survival for our Pacific peoples."

Sex promotes seagrass which acts as carbon sink

2012-01-20T08:30:00.000-05:00

http://zeenews.india.com/news/eco-news/sex-promotes-seagrass-which-acts-as-carbon-sink_753157.html

Sex promotes seagrass which acts as carbon sink

17 January 2012/ Zeenews Online

Sydney: Sex promotes greater growth of seagrass, a vegetation that doubles as a huge carbon sink and shelters marine species, reveals a study.

Seagrass meadows grew predominately via vegetative growth or cloning, using rhizomes that spread under the seabed, then send out roots and shoots, says a recent research at the University of Western Australia Oceans Institute.

But the researchers found that seagrass also relied a great deal on sexual reproduction involving male and female flowers, pollens, seeds and seedlings.

Professor Gary Kendrick, who led the Oceans Institute study, said healthy seagrass populations were extremely important for coastal stability and carbon sequestration, according to a university statement.

Last year, Jim Fourqurean, a professor also from the Oceans Institute, showed that extensive seagrass meadows in Shark Bay, on Western Australian coast, act as a massive carbon sink which stores more than $8 (Australian) billion worth of carbon dioxide, the journal Bioscience reported.

Kendrick said seagrass also formed an important habitat for many fish species, including Western Australia's juvenile western rock lobster -- the most valuable single-species fishery in Australia -- and were a source of fish protein for many coastal communities in South East Asia and Africa.

"Clearly, the process of dispersing (seeds) over these hundreds of kilometres is an important mechanism for keeping connectivity occurring between populations of the one species," Kendrick said.

Australian and US researchers examined the key role of seed dispersal in maintaining seagrass populations. They used existing DNA molecular markers to infer genetic connectivity of seagrass species.

Blue Carbon is key to fighting climate change

2012-01-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

http://www.scotsman.com/news/cartoon/struan_stevenson_blue_carbon_is_key_to_fighting_climate_change_1_2058656

Blue carbon is key to fighting climate change

16 January 2012/ by Struan Stevenson/ Scotsman Online

WE have long known the importance of our forests and peat bogs in capturing and storing CO2.

These “green carbon” systems are the world’s natural carbon capture and storage system and a crucial factor in climate change mitigation, with forests annually absorbing around 15 per cent of global CO2 emissions from transport and factories.

Less well known, but no less crucial, is the role played by our “blue carbon” marine ecosystems. Every day, we add about 22 million metric tonnes of CO2 to our oceans, meaning blue carbon sinks sequester around 55 per cent of the biological carbon captured in the world. As global CO2 emissions increase, particularly among emerging economies, impacting weather patterns and affecting food production and livelihoods, blue carbon capture is a resource that we cannot afford to squander.

An international conference kicks off in Brussels this week looking at how we can put in place the building blocks for a thriving global blue carbon system. It will look at practical ways in which we can reduce the rate of marine and coastal ecosystem degradation. That means carbon credits for CO2 sequestered in blue carbon sinks must be traded, just as they are with green carbon, while a global blue carbon fund to pay for the protection and enhancement of remaining marine ecosystems must be established.

Energy efficiency in marine transport, including fisheries, aquaculture and maritime tourism sectors is also significant. And we need to encourage environmentally sound, ocean-based energy production, exploiting natural materials like algae and seaweed. Industrial schemes to cover coastal areas and ocean floors with wave, tidal and offshore wind farms, must be subject to rigorous impact assessments, to ensure that they do not further damage blue carbon ecosystems.

Blue carbon lies at the very heart of the global warming debate. Over the past 70 years we have lost around 20 per cent of the habitats that play this vital role in CO2 reduction. That trend has to be reversed. Our survival depends on it.

• Struan Stevenson is a Conservative Euro MP for Scotland and President of the European Parliament’s Climate Change, Biodiversity & Sustainable Development Intergroup.

Image available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13125494

Blue Carbon: The Role of Oceans (and Overfishing) in Climate Change

2012-01-02T16:22:00.002-05:00

Interesting article on the ocean's understudied role in climate change. See video at end of story which highlights research on overfising disrupting oceanic carbon sink:

"...The Patagonian shelf absorbs about 17 million metric tons of carbon per year, equivalent to all the carbon contained in 100 thousand hectares of rain forest. The Patagonian shelf break is one of the most important fisheries regions on earth. Today most experiments agree that marine ecosystems are badly overfished and that at the present pace no fisheries are sustainable. A decrease in fish population could eventually affect zooplankton and phytoplankton communities thereby disrupted by (sic) the ability of the oceans to capture CO2. Such alterations of the marine ecosystem would be analogous to the impact of land use change on the continental carbon budget. These changes are still poorly understood and may bring with them unexpected surprises. Monitoring ocean productivity, carbon budgets and fisheries is important to understand options and interventions in the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions."

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http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/09/385855/blue-carbon-oceans-in-climate-change/

Blue Carbon: The Role of Oceans in Climate Change

By Stephen Lacey on Dec 9, 2011 at 10:49 am

Oceans make up 70% of the earth’s surface and hold 90% of natural carbon. So why do they only make up a small portion of the research on the global impact of carbon emissions?

The role of “blue carbon” in climate change is getting more interest from the international community. With a growing body of research exploring how an increase in atmospheric carbon is impacting the chemistry and biology of ocean ecosystems — and thus influencing climate change — people are starting to pay more attention.

However, it’s still not a well-explored concept outside the scientific community. At the COP climate talks in Durban, for example, there is endless talk about atmospheric carbon and about how to control terrestrial carbon emissions through deforestation programs like REDD+. But there are still very few mentions of oceanic carbon.

“Hopefully, by exposing the science to higher level decision makers, we will bridge a gap of communication for that necessary understanding” of the role that oceans play in climate change, said Alberto Piola, an oceanographer with the Naval Hydrographic Service in Argentina, speaking at a side event on Blue Carbon at COP 17 this week.

We can look at Blue Carbon in two ways. The first is the climate change impact of releasing natural carbon from the oceans through the destruction of ecosystems. Most research in this area is focused on near-shore ecosystems like mangroves and sea grasses. The second is the impact of burning fossil fuels on ocean ecosystems by adding geologically-trapped CO2 to the carbon cycle.

Considering the immense shift already underway in the oceans, it’s amazing that the concept hasn’t gotten more attention in the international negotiations on addressing climate change.

In pre-industrial times, the ocean was a source of CO2, and the atmosphere was a sink. But the release of staggering amounts of geologic carbon has made the oceans a net sink.

We’ve reversed the natural carbon cycle in about 200 years.

How much carbon does it take to do that? Consider this: We burn 9.1 petagrams of fossil fuels per year. That’s the equivalent of a coal train wrapped around the world 63 times – or about 2.5 million kilometers. And that train is only growing.

“Now you get a sense of how much CO2 we add to the atmosphere,” said Chris Sabine, director of the Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who outlined the numbers in a presentation.

“This pool of carbon should not be a natural part of the cycle on the time scales that we’re looking at. The terrestrial sinks and oceans are trying to take that up,” said Sabine.

Every day, we add 22 million metric tons of CO2 into the oceans. But our ability to accurately gauge the impact of those additions is still evolving.

“The models are very divergent at this point. We still need more data,” said Sabine. “We do know that resulting changes in chemistry and warming are expected to significantly impact ecosystems.”

The trends are certainly alarming. Alongside the dramatic reversal of the carbon cycle, we’ve seen a commensurate increase in the acidity of the oceans, greater fluctuations in temperatures, and an increase in oxygen depleted waters – a phenomenon known as hypoxia.

In more acidic conditions, organisms cannot use calcium carbonate for growing shells. Researchers have called acidification “a ticking time bomb” for ocean ecosystems and fisheries. And the combination of increased levels of CO2 and decreasing O2 levels can affect the temperature tolerance curve in organisms, making it harder for them to survive. The cascading impacts of these changes could be immense — but it’s still difficult to predict exactly how ocean ecosystems will respond, said Pedro Monteiro, the principal oceanographer with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, talking to Climate Progress.

In order to better predict how CO2 levels will influence oceans, Monteiro and his team are using O2 as a proxy. Because data sets for O2 are much longer than for CO2, researchers can examine the impact that fluxes in carbon and oxygen uptake have historically had on the oceans.

Until recently, research on blue carbon has been focused on how near-shore ecosystems can sequester carbon. But there’s increasing international coordination on projects looking at the role of the deep ocean. Monteiro calls the CO2 fluxes from the deep ocean “game changers” in how they influence oceanic chemistry and biology, and potentially release massive amounts of greenhouse gases back into the atmosphere.

“The exchanges are orders of magnitude larger,” explained Monteiro.”We’re trying to recognize all the different pools. What we’re seeing now is a shift from relatively small-scale regional studies to international research. And no single country can do them.”

Below is a film played at COP 17 on research in Argentina being conducted by Alberto Piola. The film was produced by the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research:

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For additional information see IAI's press release for COP 17):

http://www.iai.int/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=122

IAI Research at UNFCCC

The IAI hosted a side-event during COP-17 in Durban,

South Africa

on “Blue carbon research: biological, physical, chemical processes in oceanic carbon sinks and sources”. Based on IAI research in the South Atlantic, we discussed how ocean circulation affects blue carbon: the links between biological carbon sequestration, chemical absorption, physical transport and possible re-release to the atmosphere; and what this implies for carbon management options

Speakers:

Dr. Alberto Piola, Dr. Edmo Campos (CRN2076)

Dr. Christopher Sabine (US NOAA)

Dr. Pedro Monteiro (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – CSIR)/ESSP

The associated press release "Is continental shelf production mitigating climate change?" can be found here:

http://www.iai.int/files/Press_release_IAI_Durban.pdf

"...Overfishing disrupts the marine ecosystem’s food web and can affect the capture of carbon through phytoplankton photosynthesis..."

First Policy Action Plan/ Blue Carbon

2011-12-09T00:30:00.000-05:00

http://www.conservation.org/newsroom/pressreleases/Pages/First-action-plan-for-worlds-blue-carbon-policy.aspx

First Policy Action Plan for World's Blue Carbon

6 December 2011/ by Conservation International

"Blue Carbon Policy Framework" is Released at U.N. Climate Talks in Durban; Highlights Results of First Meeting of International Blue Carbon Policy Working Group

Durban, South Africa/Arlington, VA — The first policy framework outlining activities needed to include coastal marine areas such as mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrasses into the work of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has been presented in a report by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and Conservation International (CI), two of the leading members of the Blue Carbon Initative.

The report, "Blue Carbon Policy Framework" (PDF), outlines the opportunities for including the conservation of coastal areas in the climate change policies and financing processes currently being negotiated in Durban. The study also highlights the need for the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and the voluntary carbon market to take coastal marine ecosystems into account.

"The oceans and marine biodiversity are crucial in regulating the global climate", says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Director of IUCN's Global Marine and Polar Programme. "Oceans absorb 93.4 percent of the heat produced by climate change as well as one third of human-induced carbon dioxide. Coastal areas also have an exceptional capacity to store carbon. But currently natural solutions that the marine world offers to climate change challenges are rarely taken into account in international climate change policy."

The UNFCCC and the mechanism known as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus conservation), support the conservation and restoration of terrestrial forests as a way to reduce the effects of climate change. But the importance of coastal carbon sinks, such as mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrasses, is not yet fully recognized by the Convention.

Although coastal ecosystems cover only one to two percent of the area covered by forests globally, improving their management can supplement efforts to reduce emissions from tropical forest degradation. A square kilometer of a coastal ecosystem can store up to five times more carbon than a square kilometer of mature tropical forests. But currently these areas are being destroyed three to four times faster than forests, releasing substantial amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the ocean, and contributing to climate change.

"We think this recognition is critical," explains report co-author Dr. Emily Pidgeon, Conservation International's Senior Director of Marine Strategic Initiatives and a leading Blue Carbon conservation scientist. "The management of carbon in coastal systems can already be included in a number of UNFCCC and REDD+ components. This plan was produced to help detail what we see as key next steps in terms of a full integration of blue carbon into existing initiatives."

"We now have scientific evidence that conserving mangroves, tidal marshes, and seagrasses and other blue carbon habitats is a very precious tool in our fight against climate change," says Pierre-Yves Cousteau, IUCN's Goodwill Ambassador and founder of Cousteau Divers, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of the marine world. "These muddy coastal areas also help us adapt to the changing climate. They protect local communities from storms and regulate the quality of coastal water. Increased recognition of their importance among the climate change community will hopefully improve the way they're managed and conserved."

"We need to convince the broader policy community that blue carbon has a strong scientific basis and that it should be taken into account as a valuable tool in our suite of global efforts to confront and adapt to the impacts of climate change. We also need decision makers to understand that this tool requires adequate funding to maximize the many benefits it provides to people," adds Pidgeon.

Blue Carbon; Green Harbors

2011-12-08T10:08:00.000-05:00

http://www.environmentalgovernance.org/featured/2011/12/blue-carbon-green-harbors/

Blue Carbon; Green Harbors

6 December 2011/ by Lisa Greber/ Global Environmental Governance Project

In North Durban, the Beachwood Mangroves Nature Reserve is a 76 hectare reserve with the largest population of mangrove trees still remaining in the Durban area. Mangroves are at first sight ungainly trees, with rough bark and contorted branches, but they are a critical part of coastal ecosystems, providing shoreline protection from storm surge and beach erosion, and habitat for numerous species. The plants survive in the difficult conditions of the intertidal, submerged in salty water, and often in anoxic, oxygen deprived mud. Their roots, if remaining fully submerged, can offer hard surfaces for the growth of barnacles, sponges, and oysters.

This is the life behind the phrase “blue carbon” heard throughout COP17.

The loss of blue carbon means that globally coastal ecosystems – mangroves, salt marshes, eelgrass, and shellfish – have been lost to development, over-harvesting, and disease. Mangrove forests once likely covered the Durban coastal area, as did salt marshes along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Restoring these habitats may hold promise to mitigate the effects of global warming, both as carbon storage and as shoreline protection against rising seas. Restoration also supports the complex ecosystems of organisms that find their homes there.

Anamarija Frankic, director of the Green Boston Harbor Project (GBH) at the Center for Governance and Sustainability is not sure if the new language will be sufficient to encourage communities to restore coastal and marine habitats such as mangroves, salt marshes and shellfish beds. Little has been done to protect them before, she says, even knowing their tremendous ecological services and values. But there are hopeful signs. On some beaches around Durban, patches of mangrove are growing.

The Umgeni River wanders some 230 km before opening into the Beachwood mangrove reserve. In Boston, the Charles, the Neponset, and the Mystic Rivers drain into Boston Harbor. The health of “blue carbon” depends on the watersheds upstream, on the choices upland communities make to protect the water, as much as it does on the restoration efforts on the shore. The water connects us.

Each harbor is different, each one is similar. GBH has started a network of global green harbors to share best practices and community around the globe.

We were always a blue planet, says Anamarija, meaning the rough wild Indian Ocean of Durban’s shores, water that has traveled its way around the world. In the end it is not the name for “blue carbon” that matters, but the mangroves themselves, and our collective willingness to care for our particular coastal habitats and harbors in the context of a global whole.

(Based on reports from Durban from GBH Director Anamarija Frankic)

Bellona/ Blue Carbon

2011-12-07T03:40:00.000-05:00

http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2011/oceans_blue

‘We will make the oceans blue, bind carbon and create green jobs’

4 December 2011/ by Magnus Borgen (Bellona), Charles Digges (translator)/ Durban Climate Summit

From left to right: Ik-Kyo Chung of Pusan National University in South Korea; Dorothée Herr of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and Bellona President Frederic Hauge.

DURBAN, South Africa – Sustainable marine biomass was on the agenda when Bellona hosted a debate at its venue at the Durban UN Climate Summit.

“Marine biomass has vast theoretical potential internationally and can play an important role as a key solution in future climate treaties,”* said Bellona President Frederic Hauge.

“Now we are discussing environmental issues I am passionate about, and Bellona will do much work in the future. What we are talking about now may be the next major new weapon in the fight against climate change,” said Hauge as Bellona presented its integrated aquaculture program to a large international audience from four continents in Bellona’s delegation room Friday.

From COP14 in Poznan for COP17 in Durban

This side event in Durban was held due to a side event at COP14 in Poznan, Poland where Haugue and Svend Søyland, Bellona’s adviser on international energy and climate issues were present. At COP14, Hauge and Søyland attended an event during which South Korean Professor Ik-Kyo Chung from Pusan National University was speaking of his work on how greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced with the use of algae, seaweed and kelp. Chung presented encouraging and positive results of his university research on how seaweed farming can be a mitigation tactic to reduce greenhouse gasses that would be released into the atmosphere.

Chung argued here in Durban that is very important to establish a system within the international climate regime where one could get certified interim emissions reductions from algae growing in the sea, as there are major climate gains to be achieved via a solid focus on this type of marine biomass.

Along with Bellona and South Korea’s Chung, Dorothée Herr of the International Union for Conservation of Nature was also on the dais in Bellona’s conference room. The IUCN is a recognized international organization with a membership base of more than 1000 organizations and 10,000 scientists and experts.

“Climate negotiators should focus on creating incentives for preserving marine ecosystems such as mangroves, and punish those who harm it,” said Herr to those assembles.

Herr pointed out that the oceans are a very important habitat, and that the process of carbon bonding in water-bound saline plants is higher than that of plants on land. Herr therefore presented good arguments that mangrove forests at sea should be implemented in the UN’s REDD+ rainforest preservation mechanism at the climate negotiations. Carbon sequestration at sea, also called Blue Carbon, has 20 percent of the potential that REDD has.

“Mangrove binds much carbon in the soil, and the IUCN will work for this to get increased attention as an important international climate measure,” said Herr.

Too many people think small thoughts about the environment and climate

Frederic Hauge opened his speech by pointing out that if one were to cover the biofuel needs of the world’s aviation industry by cultivating soybeans, one would need to cultivate an area the size of Europe and the Ukraine.

“If the same amount of biomass production should take place through algae production on land, then one would only need an area the size of Belgium,” said Hauge.

Hauge argued that there are great opportunities for all coastal nations around the world to see the exciting low cost synergies between the fishing industry, offshore renewable energy and the cultivation of seaweed and kelp. He noted that there is a very large theoretical potential for offshore wind turbines becoming a very good habitat for fish and marine biomass.

“We don’t have all the answers just yet, but working further with integrated fish farming in the fight against climate change is doubtless something that must have more resources,” said Hauge.

The world community needs to create green jobs for 2 billion people who need jobs the next 20 years, both people and animals need food, we need medicine and Omega 3 and not least, we need much more bioenergy, said Hauge enthusiastically. Hauge also pointed out Bellona’s algae work in Madagascar as an example of how developing coastal strip counties have more theoretical potential for development than many think.
“Bellona’s focus on integrated aquaculture is part of a tradition where we focus on solution-oriented work. There are too many people who think small thoughts about climate change,” said Hauge.

“I think it's very inspiring to work with environmental protection and be here in Durban where we can work to make the sky blue with our CCS work, the desert green with the Sahara Forest Project, and to make the ocean blue and exploit very exciting synergies with Bellona’s coming Ocean Forest Project,” said a very optimistic Hauge.

Oceans Day at Durban/ Blue Carbon

2011-12-05T10:35:00.000-05:00

http://uncsd.iisd.org/news/oceans-day-at-durban-discusses-blue-carbon/

Oceans Day at Durban Discusses Blue Carbon

3 December 2011/ by iisd

Oceans Day 2011, part of the Durban Climate Change Conference, addressed various issues related to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20), including the concept of blue carbon and the green economy.

Oceans Day took place on 3 December 2011, on the sidelines of the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa.

Participants engaged in a session on "Oceans and coasts at the UNFCCC and at Rio+20: The need for concerted action," with a number of speakers underlining the need for strengthened blue carbon policy capacity, and for accelerating the uptake of ocean and coastal-based carbon mitigation approaches. Biliana Cicin-Sain, President, Global Ocean Forum, underscored the importance of achieving greater equity in management of fisheries with greater benefits for coastal communities, noting the relevance of this issue in the Rio+20 process.

The meeting forwarded a Chair's statement to COP 17, in which the global oceans community calls attention to the need to develop an integrated programme for oceans and coasts within and beyond the UNFCCC. It recommends various actions, including deepening understanding and policy approaches to support blue carbon.

Oceans Day was co-organized by the Global Ocean Forum, in association with a number of partners, including the Government of South Africa, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (IOC-UNESCO), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and the GEF/UNDP/UN Environment Programme (UNEP) African LME projects. [IISD RS Coverage] [Oceans Day at Durban Co-Chairs’ Statement]

GEF Council Approves “Blue Forests” Project

2011-11-11T17:18:00.001-05:00

Blue Carbon included in "Blue Forests" project, Project Preparation Grant (PPG) next...

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GEF council members approve more than half a billion dollars worth of projects – the second largest GEF work program in its history

http://www.thegef.org/gef/content/gef-council-members-approve-over-half-billion-dollar-worth-projects-%E2%80%93-second-largest-gef-wor

Washington DC, November 9, 2011

Today the GEF Council, the governing body of the Global Environment Facility, approved an unprecedented large work program within the fifth replenishment cycle of the GEF. With 40 stand alone projects and 9 programmatic approaches amounting to $516.40 million, this work program represents double the average submissions made since its creation 20 years ago.

In addition, an impressive amount of $4.1 billion has been leveraged from GEF partners to further expand the reach of the program. As a result, 99 recipient countries will benefit from this work program alone, the largest number ever included in a single submission by the GEF.

This work program is however, not only remarkable because of its size, but also due to the key innovations around which it has been designed.

In terms of programmatic strategy, this work program addresses environment issues in the most holistic, comprehensive manner achieved so far, as evidenced by twenty one multi-focal area projects, joint GEF Agency (UNDP, UNEP, World Bank) partnerships in four projects/programs submitted and four initiatives combining the GEF resources with those of other environment related trust funds. Comparative advantages of each partner, are assembled in this most effective program implementation arrangement ever put together by the GEF.

For example, with the Marine and Coastal Protected Areas project, Brazil will significantly increase protection of its marine area by addressing unsustainable fishing practices, discharge of pollutants and industrial impact in an integrated manner. In addition, this project includes financing mechanisms to generate revenues for the sustainable management of these protected areas through climate change related mechanisms (Blue Carbon) and payment for ecosystem services.

This work program includes many other large-impact projects around the world. For example in China, the Main Streams of Life-Wetland Protected Area System Strengthening for Biodiversity Conservation will create a strong national system for managing 48,962,400 hectares of wetlands, and protect an additional 1.7 million hectares containing 50 unprotected threatened species.

Similarly, the impact of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM/REDD+) projects will in this work program reach proportions never achieved before. Through the involvement of indigenous peoples and local communities these projects alone will save over 3 million tons of CO2 emissions in combating deforestation and forest degradation, while creating 2.5 million hectares of new protected areas, and implement sustainable management regimes across1.3 million hectares more.

One of the most innovative International Waters initiatives in this work program is the “Blue Forests” project. Research has recently found coastal habitats like mangroves, sea grass beds, coral reefs, and salt marshes (referred to as Blue Forests) to trap more carbon per unit area than terrestrial habitats. For the first time their true worth as key assets in environmental management has been recognized. The objective of this project is to develop methodologies to estimate carbon trapped by coastal and marine systems as well as to demonstrate their economic value.

This most ambitious work program reflects a holistic approach to environmental challenges, is based on community and indigenous people participation, maximization of impact through strong partnerships and financial leverage, all of which are a direct result from the string of key reforms that the GEF has carried out during the last few years.

Coastal Blue Carbon & NOAA

2011-11-10T10:54:00.001-05:00

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is setting the standard high for Blue Carbon sites with their Coastal Blue Carbon web page. This may be the first “government” site on Blue Cabron. Please see the links, the site speaks for itself.

Coastal Blue Carbon

NOAA’s Coastal Blue Carbon Efforts

Congratulations to NOAA and the Habitat Conservation Office!

-Steven

Ecosystem Services Toolkit

2011-11-07T08:11:00.001-05:00

Carbon services included...

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A ‘toolkit’ for measuring ecosystem services at the site scale is released

http://www.unep-wcmc.org/a-toolkit-for-measuring-ecosystem-services-at-the-site-scale-is-released_751.html

'Measuring and Monitoring Ecosystem Services at the Site Scale' introduces a new ‘toolkit’ for measuring ecosystem services at the site scale which is accessible to non-experts and delivers scientifically robust results. This booklet explains some key concepts including the need to consider a ‘plausible alternative state’ to measure differences resulting from changes in land management and use, and the importance of identifying beneficiaries.

The work has been coordinated by researchers and conservation biologists from Anglia Ruskin University, BirdLife International, Cambridge University, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, with input and guidance provided by over 50 other scientists.

What can the toolkit do?

Help users with limited capacity (technical knowledge, time) and resources (money, ‘man’ power) to measure ecosystem services.
Provide simple gross assessments of ecosystem services at sites, and a way of assessing how these would change if the sites were altered.
Provide scientifically robust information on ecosystem services—a first step which can guide practitioners on whether more detailed studies would be useful.
Indicate who will be the ‘winners’ and who will be the ‘losers’ as a result of any change in land use and ecosystem service delivery.
Help decision-makers appreciate the true value of nature, and the consequences of destruction and degradation of natural habitats.

The methods and approaches presented in the toolkit have been tested at four sites to-date (2011), including Shivapuri–Nagarjun National Park (Nepal), Phulchoki Mountain Forest (Nepal), Montserrat Centre Hills (Montserrat) and Wicken Fen (UK), with implementation and support from Bird Conservation Nepal, the Department of Environment in Montserrat and the National Trust in the UK. In 2012, there are plans for further testing at a number of additional sites and publication of the methods and results through the peer-reviewed scientific literature, as well as the development of a ‘toolkit’ user-manual.

The toolkit has been developed, thus far, through two projects: A Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) project entitled ‘Measuring and monitoring ecosystem services at the site scale: building practical tools for real-world conservation’ and a BirdLife International / Darwin Initiative project entitled ‘Understanding, assessing and monitoring ecosystem services for better biodiversity conservation’.

The booklet is available to download below:

Measuring and monitoring ecosystem services at the site scale.html (PDF,1.7Mb)

Global Blue Carbon Market Proposed by Five UN Agencies

2011-11-05T08:15:00.001-04:00

Global Blue Carbon Market Proposed by Five UN Agencies

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2011/2011-11-01-01.html

PARIS, France, November 1, 2011 (ENS) - A global blue carbon market that would create direct economic gain for those who protect ocean habitats is the main feature of a plan issued today by five United Nations agencies to improve the management of the world's ocean and coastal areas.

The "Blueprint for Ocean and Coastal Sustainability" says that the agencies intend to work with existing international carbon markets to define and implement a blue carbon market for protecting marine and coastal carbon sinks.

Rainbow frames a salt marsh in the Wadden Sea, Germany. (Photo by Peter Femto)

Oceans act as sinks for the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, CO2. In fact, the oceans are the largest active carbon sink on Earth, absorbing 26 percent of all CO2 emissions.

One reason for the oceans' big share of carbon is its biological pump, which removes carbon dioxide from the ocean surface, changing it into living matter and distributing it to the deeper water layers.

Out of all the biological carbon captured in the world, 55 percent is taken up at sea by marine living organisms, and so is called blue carbon.

At least half of this is captured by the ocean's vegetated habitats - mangroves, salt marshes, seagrasses, and seaweed. These plants cover less than 0.5 percent of the seabed, but play an important role in regulating the climate and mitigating climate change.

The five UN agencies that authored the Blueprint - UNESCO, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Maritime Organization, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization - warn that although the oceans account for 70 percent of the planet's surface, only one percent of that area is protected.

To develop and implement a global strategy on blue carbon, their Blueprint says standards must be agreed for blue carbon monitoring and certification. Targets must be set for habitat protection in the context of blue carbon.

In addition, economic valuation methodologies must be developed for blue forest ecosystem services.

The agencies say they will work to create global acceptance of ocean and coastal habitats as a new form of tradable carbon market with a "global blue carbon fund."

Within international climate change policy instruments, they intend to create mechanisms that will allow the future use of carbon credits for marine and coastal ecosystem carbon capture and storage.

The critical role of oceans and their ecosystems has been overlooked, the agencies say. They aim to ensure oceans and coastal ecosystems are not neglected at the upcoming Rio+20 conference scheduled for June 2012.

Mangrove forest on the coast of Yangjiang, Guangdong, China (Photo by Leo Zhu)

Their report emphasises that 60 percent of the world's major marine ecosystems have been degraded or are being used unsustainably, resulting in huge economic and social losses.

Mangrove forests have lost 30 to 50 percent of their original cover in the last 50 years while coral reefs have lost 20 percent, increasing the vulnerability of many highly populated coastal areas.

The ocean absorbs close to 26 percent of atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions. This is causing acidification of the oceans that is already threatening some varieties of plankton and poses a threat to the entire marine food chain and the human livelihoods that depend on the oceans and coastal waters.

"Some of these phenomena are not new but are aggravated by cumulative pressures such as climate change, intensified human activity and technological advances," the agencies said today.

"Ecosystems situated in the deep ocean, where biodiversity and habitats often have major value, but are generally not well understood, have virtually no protection at all."

The international community pledged to tackle these challenges at the United Nations summits in Rio in 1992 and Johannesburg (in 2002.

But the commitments made there remain ineffective and their objectives have not been met, the UN agencies acknowledge. Neither the pledge to restore fish stocks to sustainable levels by 2015, nor the promise to create networks of protected marine areas by 2012 have been met.

Few countries have adopted legislation to reduce land-based marine pollution,which has led to an increase in the number of dead ocean areas, the report finds. More than 400 marine areas have been listed as "biologically dead."

"The full implementation of many of these goals and targets will require further efforts by states, intergovernmental organizations and the international community," write the authors.

They claim the present situation is the result of insufficient political will and resources, inadequate institutional capacities, insufficient scientific data and market imbalances.

"Greening the Blue Economy will be science and technology driven," they conclude. "But success will depend on sound policy processes and effective institutional arrangements and will therefore require commitment and funding from the international community as well as nations and industry."

Available at:

http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/SC/pdf/interagency_blue_paper_ocean_rioPlus20.pdf (2.2 mb)

Blue Carbon in Canada

2011-10-23T03:58:00.001-04:00

Courtenay River Estuary could hold 'blue key' to lock in carbon dioxide

By Philip Round, Comox Valley Echo October 21, 2011

The Courtenay River Estuary is the largest estuary found on Vancouver Island (Image courtesy Sierra Club BC).

The Courtenay River Estuary could hold a blue key that locks in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Comox Valley Regional District directors heard on Tuesday.

Paul Horgen, chair of Project Watershed, said local governments would have to start paying money to the province in the form of 'carbon offsets' from next year.

But his group saw an opportunity to spend that money on estuary restoration work here.

He sought support for a pilot project to investigate the potential for 'blue carbon' capture through the extensive restoration of eel grass beds and sedges in salt marsh riparian zones.

Research elsewhere has suggested that such plants were 90 times more effective than trees in absorbing the gas.

The plants stored it, and when the died back - as they did several times a year - and the vegetation rotted into the mud, the absorbed carbon dioxide was locked away for good, and in the far distant future would eventually become coal.

Horgen hoped it would be possible to persuade the province to divert $100,000 of the carbon offset payments it would be receiving to fund a hands-on pilot project here in the local estuary.

That would not only measure the effectiveness of carbon capture, possibly providing a model for many other north American estuaries, but also see the extensive replanting of eel grasses and sedges employing young people in the process.

It was, he suggested, a win-win, because even if the intensity of capture could not proved - although he believed it would be - the replanting project would help restore the estuary to its former abundance with big salmon returning as they did in the 1950s.

Regional district directors liked the idea and are now recommending the full board supports the project.

They are proposing the province be asked if they will allow local governments to invest their carbon off-set payments in blue carbon projects, such as the Courtenay River Estuary pilot project, rather than just sending the money to Victoria for undetermined use.

They will also suggest the Union of British Columbia Municipalities take up the issue, as it could be relevant to many other coastal areas.

Mangroves of Fiji - Blue Carbon and other Ecosystem Services

2011-10-18T05:18:00.000-04:00

Mangroves of Fiji noted for the many important ecosystem services they provide including:

Filtering land-born sediments, thereby helping to protect adjacent coral reefs;
Absorbing and storing the greenhouse gases (Blue Carbon);
Acting as nursery grounds for commercially important fish species;
Protecting shorelines from cyclones and tsunamis; and
Providing resilience to climate change

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Mangroves much maligned

Sunday, October 16, 2011, Kate Findley, WWF

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=183370

Mangrove trees catch sediment from the river to build a base for their roots.

How would you describe a mangrove forest? Muddy, smelly, and mosquito-infested?

The land's not suitable to build on, the fish are small, refuse collects in the tangled web of roots that keep trying to trip you like a cartoon character, stunted shoots cut and scratch at you and it's impossible to navigate without years of experience or a compass. These are perhaps the reasons for Fiji's mangrove area declining by 13% between 1978 and 1994.

However contrary to popular belief mangrove forests are actually extremely productive and biodiverse ecosystems - linking the land to the sea they prevent debris from washing onto reefs, absorb and store the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, and act as nursery grounds for commercially important fish including rabbitfish (nuqa), bumphead parrotfish (kalia) and many shark (qio) species.

The mangrove corridor to the Great Sea Reef

There is a close connection between mangroves and the Great Sea Reef, the third longest reef in the southern hemisphere, hugging the entire northern coast of Vanua Levu. Those in the NGO business often consider the Great Sea Reef to be "the hidden gem" of the South Pacific with its globally significant biodiversity, 12 IUCN Red Listed species including the green turtle, humphead wrasse and manta ray, as well as its sheer length.

The Great Sea Reef's health is in large part dependent on that of its mangrove corridor which fringes the Labasa River from hilltop to river mouth before the river water flows on to the reef. Mangroves roots - those extensive, tangled masses - trap particles from the river, so that the tree in effect builds an environment for itself from which it can obtain nutrients and anchor its roots.

By trapping particles, mangroves clarify and purify the water, creating that wondrously clear aquamarine water essential for coral reefs to receive sunlight and flourish; and by absorbing excess nutrients they prevent algae enshrouding the slow-growing coral.

Recent scientific evidence following the 2004 Boxing Day Aceh tsunami indicates that mangroves are also effective buffers for the shore when cyclones and tsunamis strike; fewer lives are lost and less damage is caused in communities with broader mangrove belts, earning them the nickname "bioshields".

Putting a plaster on a gaping wound

With lives and livelihoods lost in the furious flash floods that strike Labasa year after year, in 2008 it was decided to dredge the Labasa River, which flows directly through the centre of the town. Floods have always been a problem in Labasa, which is unsurprising considering it sits straddling three rivers in a flat, low-lying estuary that used to be a swamp.

For those who are not familiar with the term, dredging is the process of excavating the sediment lying at the bottom of a river bed to deposit it somewhere else, which at least in the short term deepens the water channel so it can carry a larger volume of water at any one time.

So what's the problem? Environmental group the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) have recently been speaking out about the impact dredging is having on the surrounding mangroves.

"Unfortunately, the act of dredging to deepen the channels and river mouth is in this case creating a false sense of security with the dredging's capacity to do more harm than good." Ms Monifa Fiu, Building Resilience Officer at WWF South Pacific commented.

"The way dredging is currently being conducted in the Labasa river just now, the material or 'spoil' that is dredged from the bottom of the river is being dumped in the first line of mangroves on the river bank, killing them."

"My fear is that as storm frequency increases due to climate change, we will have to dredge much more often, progressively destroying the layers of mangroves that line the bank."

Ms Fiu noted these dead patches on a field trip assessing the vulnerability of these mangroves to climate change as part of the major new AusAID funded 'Building Resilience' project, which aims to strengthen the resilience of the Ba and Labasa river catchments to the effects of climate change. The patches were of mature black mangroves (dogo) - a species of particular note for their protection and stabilization of low-lying coastal areas. In short, their message is clear: In Fiji we gain so much from mangroves that we cannot afford for them to be damaged as a result of poor planning. Mangrove build, mangroves protect, mangroves host and mangroves provide.

Climate Conversations - Uprooting families to save trees

2011-10-14T05:16:00.003-04:00

A critique of REDD+, some questions to keep in mind as Blue Carbon advances:

Does rights and access to ecosystems present an even more intensive issue for Blue Carbon then REDD+? (Many more people live on coastlines than in forests.)
People have lived on coastlines for many generations, is there anything we can learn from traditional practices that promote environmental sustainability?
Is it possible to incorporate traditional sustainable practices into a Blue Carbon approach?
Is it important to ensure the right of coastal communities to the environment where they live? And how would this be accomplished in a Blue Carbon approach?
How could coastal communities also receive a fair share of Blue Carbon benefits?

- Steven

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Climate Conversations - Uprooting families to save trees

By Darryl Vhugen | Tue., October 4, 2011

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/blogs/climate-conversations/uprooting-families-to-save-trees

In this 2005 file photo, traditional honey collectors row a boat during honey collection at Bali Island in the Sunderbans mangrove forest delta in India (REUTERS/Jayanta Shaw).

Much has been written about the global land rush –the trend in which investors, eager to establish plantations to produce food or biofuel at a discount, buy up or lease vast swaths of farmland in the developing world. In the process they often uproot entire villages, reducing small indigenous farmers to legions of landless poor.

From Uganda to Cambodia, there are reports of farmers and herders being told, often with little notice or compensation, that they must vacate their land to make room for investors.

Often, these investors have negotiated directly with central authorities and have promised jobs, technology, and infrastructure improvements in exchange for the land. But their promises of benefits to locals often go unfulfilled.

It is becoming increasingly clear that this accelerating trend of largely unregulated commercial land acquisitions threatens not only the developing world’s farmers and pastoralists, but also the world’s forests and the people who depend on them.

That’s because as farmland becomes increasingly scarce, investors and others are looking to forest land for their food and biofuel production.

At least 400 million people are highly dependent on forests for their livelihoods. These forest dwellers often have sustainably used and managed their forest land for generations.

They survive by gathering medicinal plants, and produce like honey and mushrooms. But they often have no formal legal claim to the land or forest resources. The forests they use now cover about 30 percent of the planet.

These people and the forests they use are increasingly at risk.

A recent report from the Rights and Resources Initiative highlights the implications: “Now that forest lands are increasingly valuable for agriculture, carbon and biofuels, there is greater pressure from investors and less interest by many governments to recognize the local land rights.”

Fortunately, international groups including the UN and the World Bank have created a tool called REDD+ - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation - to help protect the world’s forests.

This international program is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through (1) avoiding the release of carbon stored in trees when trees are cut down; (2) encouraging the storage of additional carbon by leaving trees standing; and (3) promoting reforestation.

If the international community can agree on the details, at some point, REDD+ funds will flow to heavily forested countries that take steps to preserve and grow their forests.

It sounds good except for one missing element: the rights of forest dwellers.

Tens of millions of traditional people have lived in and around the forest for generations and managed the forest sustainably, taking what they need but ensuring that the ecosystem continues to thrive.

Will these people be allowed to continue using forest products sustainably and receive their fair share of these funds for preserving, protecting and managing the forest? Or will governments bypass the people and pocket all of the money themselves?

Recent headlines make clear, no matter what the source of the demand for forest land (conservation or timber), traditional forest dwellers can be the big losers as more powerful interests, public and private, force them out of the forest or preclude them from engaging in their customary activities.

Admirable motives could lead to deeply troubling unintended consequences – families uprooted to save trees.

This is discouraging particularly because research indicates that forests that are actively managed by local communities thrive. They can actually have lower rates of deforestation than protected areas where forest resource use is completely prohibited.

And obviously from a social stability, socio-economic and human rights standpoint, allowing these traditional people to remain in the forest makes sense.

For the past several months a team at Landesa has conducted a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded study of the property rights implications of REDD+.

We carried out field research in Indonesia, Mexico, Nepal, Tanzania and Mozambique. One of our conclusions is that for REDD+ to be effective in the long-term, and for the world to create a sustainable forest conservation program, a substantial portion of the financial benefit must go to the communities who have the ability to manage and protect the forest.

Often that will be the local, forest-dependent community.

Such a path would require governments, many of whom are poor and cash strapped, to forego a part of the REDD+ payments they would receive and pass the cash on to often powerless and voiceless forest dwellers. Recent reports indicate that this is not happening.

In order for REDD+ to be successful, these forest communities must have secure rights to the land where they live. They must also receive a fair share of REDD+ benefits.

Otherwise, the remaining tropical forests will continue to shrink and we will undermine one of the most cost-effective and promising climate change strategies available.

Darryl Vhugen is a senior attorney and land tenure specialist with Landesa, a non-profit organisation that has advised and partnered with government departments and other groups in more than 40 countries to help extend secure land rights to the rural poor.

Blue Carbon in Suriname

2011-10-06T05:20:00.000-04:00

Restoring mangroves may give Suriname carbon credits

05 Oct 2011 15:30 / Alertnet / Marvin Hokstam

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/restoring-mangroves-may-give-suriname-carbon-credits

John Goedschalk and Sieuwnath Naipal monitor the growth of mangroves planted along Suriname's coastline. ALERTNET/Marvin Hokstam

CORONIE DISTRICT, Suriname (Alertnet) -- The seawall that is supposed to protect the muddy coastline of coconut district Coronie, in the country's north, is almost complete.

Standing some 10 meters above sea level, the wide dam provides a scenic drive, with virginal land on both sides and fish-filled channels cutting through it - a dream habitat for wildlife.

But this idyllic situation may not last long. According to University of Suriname professor Sieuwnath Naipal, much of the land on the ocean side of the 15-km-long dam will disappear in 20 years, abandoned as unsalvageable as the country focuses on forming a barrier against the waves that are eroding Coronie District’s coastline.

The dam, which contractors started building two years ago, sits about 100 meters inland; everything between it and the sea is sacrificed to the waves. Already, about 50 meters of the road to the dyke has disappeared, chewed away by the constant barrage of salt water.

“That’s a part of our country we already lost,” Naipal says, shaking his head.

The solution to preventing similar losses, Naipal says, is his mangrove reintroduction project, which he believes will save the land that others have given up on.

As it does so, the project could also turn out to be a groundbreaking money-earner for Suriname, potentially making the country tens of millions of dollars from the carbon-compliance market.

RETREATING COASTLINE

A few kilometres beyond the end of the seawall, black mangrove seedlings Naipal planted on a mudbank a year ago are thriving. Where there was bare muck, mangrove plants now stand up to two meters tall. Red ibises and other birds frolic among the plants.

“This project has exceeded my expectations,” says Naipal, a Russian-trained hydrologist.

He started planting the cloned mangrove seedlings as part of a university project supported by the Suriname Conservation Foundation (SCF), a government-funded NGO. The project was supposed to prove that, under the right circumstances, mangroves could be introduced to protect the country's heavily eroding coastline from moving further inland.

That has proved the case. Naipal discovered that the mud banks that shift along Suriname’s coastline at a pace of 1-to-5 kilometres per year manage the flow of inland freshwater as it meets sea water, creating the perfect level of salinity for mangroves, which used to be plentiful along the coast.

For centuries, coastal mangrove forests worked as a natural protection against erosion, their stilt-like air roots locking in the shifting mud spit out by Brazil's Amazon River and causing Suriname’s coastline to expand.

Naipal believes the construction in the 1960s of the East-West link, the road from the capital Paramaribo to the western border district of Nickerie, disturbed the natural flow of freshwater out to sea, causing a slow but mass demise of the country's mangroves.

With the plants gone, the sea has free rein and Suriname's coastline has been retreating. Over the past ten years, coastal district Coronie has been getting smaller by about 100 meters per year, and residents now fear for their fields and livelihoods.

ADAPTING TO NATURE

Naipal agreed that a seawall was necessary to save Suriname's coast - but he also was convinced it wouldn't be enough and that mangrove reintroduction could play a key role.

With his tentative proof that reintroduction works, the professor now wants to convince MNO Vervat, the Dutch company building the dyke, to consider investing in freshwater channels to the sea and to allow him to plant alongside a longer stretch of coast.

“They are shipping thousands of kilograms of boulders down here, to reinforce the foot of the dam,” he said. But "if they would fix the (freshwater channels) and allow me to plant the mangroves, the waves would never reach the dam.

“I'm saying: let's see if I’m right. If I’m wrong they can always spend all that money on the boulders two years from now,” he said.

Along with the environmental benefits, Naipal sees in his project an opportunity to boost tourism and employment in Suriname's coastal areas – and make the sea wall sustainable.

“With mangroves alongside the coastline we will continue to have forests on both sides of the seawall, which can then serve as a boulevard with a tourism industry surrounded by wildlife," he says. "But without the mangroves, the sea will slowly eat away the dam [and] after this dam is gone, more money will have to be spent on building a new one."

"The erosion of the coastline will continue if we don’t do anything," he says. "Building a dam is us expecting that nature will adapt to us. But we need to adapt to nature and assist it where we can."

EMISSIONS TRADING

If successful, Naipal's project could not only stop Suriname from shrinking, but could boost the country's coffers. His efforts have caught the attention of the government's newly established Climate Compatible Development Agency (CCDA), which wants to use the mangrove project to trade in blue carbon credits - credits earned from carbon stored in wetlands like mangrove forests and which can be sold on a carbon market.

"Mangroves store up to 25 times more carbon than tropical forests," says CCDA director John Goedschalk, "So the professor may have unwittingly started a project that can be turned into millions of dollars of income for Suriname."

Low-lying and heavily forested, Suriname counts itself among the five nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and aims to seek funding from international agencies to arm it against the effects of climate change.

Goedschalk, a U.S.-trained economist tasked with helping Suriname acquire the funding it's entitled to, says the country should focus on climate-change adaptation and mitigation measures that also have economic benefits.

“We should move toward climate resilience and low-carbon development, but at the same time take advantage of our access to international climate-change rewards,” he says.

Naipal’s plan to reintroduce Suriname's mangroves, especially since it has an emissions-trading element, “is definitely the kind of project that falls within our scope," says Goedschalk.

“The climate-change funding agencies look for projects that have poverty eradication, employment creation and sustainable tourism elements. Naipal has all of those covered in his."

Blue Carbon in The Bahamas

2011-09-30T05:59:00.000-04:00

Island School and Deep Creek Middle School Students Plant Seeds of Hope for the Climate

29 September, 2011 By Caleb Oberst, The Eleutheran

http://www.eleutheranews.com/local/1755.html

Students Planting Mangrove Propagules

Propagating Awareness One Propagule At a Time

CAPE ELEUTHERA, THE BAHAMAS (29 September, 2011) - On Saturday, September 24th, The Cape Eleuthera Foundation – a non-profit organization dedicated to education and research in sustainability – worked to regenerate the local ecosystem and raise awareness of issues surrounding climate change as part of a global grassroots movement known as Moving Planet. Arranged by the organization 350.org, Moving Planet is a worldwide event during which communities across the globe join together to inspire individuals to take action and promote solutions to the climate crisis.

In honor of Moving Planet, The Cape Eleuthera Foundation hosted a day-long event at The Island School for local community members to learn about 350.org and plant 350 mangrove propagules on campus. During an educational morning seminar, students learned that the number 350 represents the safe limit of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere and that our current CO2 level is 398. They considered where energy comes from and how global dependence on fossil fuels might be reduced; they were encouraged to think about their power, as global citizens, to speak their minds and stand up for causes that they believe in; and they learned that mangrove trees, which were once abundant on Eleuthera but have been lost in recent decades due to development, play a crucial role in the local ecosystem and in reducing levels of carbon in the atmosphere.

Following the seminar, Island School and Deep Creek Middle School students along with faculty and staff from The Cape Eleuthera Institute got their hands dirty moving rocks, shoveling sand, building walls, digging channels and planting propagules. The event was a huge success and illustrates one of Moving Planet’s core principles: that individuals, when they put their hearts, minds and bodies together, can accomplish more than they’ve imagined. Annabelle Brooks, Research Manager at the Cape Eleuthera Institute, remarked, “It’s pretty incredible how much we got done in just an hour and a half, and this is something we’ve been talking about doing for years.” The Moving Planet mangrove project is intended to become an ongoing study and monitoring project on the topic of mangrove restoration on Eleuthera. We all know that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but as one student observed, “it doesn’t have to be huge to be meaningful.” Slowly, one propagule at a time, we are striving to build a better future for our planet, and hope we’ve inspired others to do the same.

Red Mangrove Propagules Ready For Planting

Green development in Abu Dhabi

2011-09-20T07:04:00.000-04:00

Climate change, green development and coastal ecosystems in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

______________________________________

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/environment/ecology-expert-urges-green-development-1.857294

Ecology expert urges green development

Consider environment in planning stages, Razan says

By Binsal Abdul Kader, Staff Reporter, Published: August 26, 2011

The eastern mangroves cover a 1.2-kilometre stretch in Abu Dhabi. The emissions of greenhouse gases in Abu Dhabi is currently amongst the highest in the world.

Abu Dhabi: The pace of development is the major challenge to the efforts for environmental conservation in Abu Dhabi, according to the recently appointed Secretary General of Environment Agency, Abu Dhabi.

"Economic development is progressing much faster than our understanding of their impact on the environment, which can lead to very costly solutions and measures," Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak told Gulf News in an exclusive interview.

It is critical that the environment is being considered at the planning stage and not just as an afterthought, she said.

Razan said Abu Dhabi is blessed with amazing biodiversity and natural resources. However, with the population predicted to more than double between now and 2030, there will be increased demand for land to build on as well as energy, water, food and other products, she said.

"As Abu Dhabi continues to develop, it is critical that we have a strong and effective environmental regulatory framework, with a clear strategy focused on tackling the big issues in partnership with government, non-government organisations, academia and the private sector.

"This will help ensure that economic growth provides the desired benefits without damaging Abu Dhabi's natural heritage and long-term future prospects. Only in this way can we achieve a prosperous society in a sustainable environment," Razan said.

The availability of water is a particular and urgent concern, she said. "Currently around 65 per cent of all the water we use is supplied from groundwater, the remainder being provided by desalination and recycled water. But in our arid environment groundwater renews itself slowly, causing the supply to diminish."

A growing population means a future need for increased water supplies, and as groundwater levels diminish more reliance will be placed on energy-and carbon-intensive desalination processes, the official said.

The per capita consumption of goods and emissions of greenhouse gases in Abu Dhabi is currently amongst the highest in the world. Abu Dhabi will need to look to both policy changes and changes in individual habits to reduce this consumption and these emissions to acceptable levels, she said.

To meet the growing demand, much of the raw materials will have to be imported, increasing the environmental impacts associated with sea and land transport. Carbon dioxide and other gaseous emissions are also likely to increase, both from the manufacturing processes and the transport of raw materials and end produce. Volumes of waste and hazardous waste will increase, requiring effective and safe treatment or storage, Razan said.

Expressing her concerns about climate change, she said possible increase in sea levels due to global warming will put further pressure on vulnerable areas such as the coastal zone which is already under pressure from development. In Abu Dhabi, mangrove forests and sea grass in these areas will suffer as a result of rise in sea levels and water temperatures, the official said.

Adapted native plants

"We have 450-500 terrestrial plant species, many of which have uniquely adapted to conditions of high temperatures, high salt levels and low rainfall," Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak said. "This is also true for the desert animals which have adaptive strategies to help them survive in the harsh desert environment."

However, temperatures are now increasing at a rate not seen historically which may lead to instability in these finely balanced ecosystems making them increasingly vulnerable, she said.

Wetland Restoration in CA and Blue Carbon

2011-09-14T06:15:00.002-04:00

Restoration project in San Diego CA restores 630 acres of tidal saltwater wetlands - while also restoring natural Blue Carbon function

Located in southern San Francisco Bay, the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project is an ambitious effort to return more than 15,000 acres of salt flats to a natural state - as tidal saltwater wetlands. On Tuesday 630 acres were inundated. The project is the largest tidal wetland restoration effort on the West Coast, with a current total of 3,000 acres of former salt flats in the process of restoration.

The project's goal is to replicate that hand of Mother Nature - this includes bringing back natural ecosystem services such as:

• The re-establishment of fish habitat, providing support for recreational and commercial fisheries;

• The enhancing of local biodiversity, providing opportunities for wildlife related tourism activities such as bird watching;

• Improved water quality through natural sediment control;

• Adaptation for climate change through natural protection from sea-level rise; and

• The restoration of the role this wetland plays in storing carbon, thereby helping to mitigate climate change.

South Bay salt ponds before and after restoration. In just a year, native pickleweed colonizes the mudflats. Photo: South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project.

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Oldest Bay Area salt flat turned into wetland

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/14/MN8L1L44HA.DTL

Wednesday, September 14, 2011, Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle

With the crunch of a bulldozer Tuesday afternoon, the oldest salt flat in the Bay Area became the region's newest wetland.

Amid cheers from dozens of biologists and state Fish and Game workers, a construction crew ripped through an old levee just south of the San Mateo Bridge, allowing water from Old Alameda Creek to flow into the bone-dry moonscape of a salt flat for the first time since the 1850s. Eventually a levee to the west of that flat will be breached to reconnect the 630 acres to San Francisco Bay.

"These salt ponds took away the lungs of the Bay. Today we're giving them back," said Carl Wilcox, manager of the Bay-Delta region for the California Department of Fish and Game.

Water and mud slopped into the barren whiteness that stretches over more than 1 square mile in the shoreline area known as Eden Landing. Biologists expect fish and birds to start investigating the new habitat immediately and full restoration to be complete in a decade.

Tuesday's levee breach was the first salt-flat restoration in the East Bay. It is part of the 15,000-acre South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, the largest wetland restoration program on the Pacific Coast, which has so far been concentrated on the salt ponds around Alviso.

Nature does the work

With the Hayward addition, more than 3,000 acres around the bay have been restored. The remaining 12,000 are still in the planning process, which includes digging ditches where channels once flowed and building new levees to protect shoreline development from flooding.

But otherwise, the tides do all the work.

"We just set the table and let Mother Nature do the rest," said John Bourgeois, director of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. "Once you let the tides in, the sediment comes in, bringing the seeds, and the whole process will be set in motion."

Salt flats have been a fixture of the shoreline at least since the Gold Rush. Ohlone Indians harvested salt along the waterfront, but then commercial outfits such as Leslie and later Cargill took over. In the late 1990s Cargill sold most of its Bay Area salt ponds to the state and federal governments for wetland restoration.

What biologists discovered, though, was that over the decades some species had grown to like the salt ponds. Threatened snowy plovers, for example, nest on the salt flats because they're similar to their usual nesting spots, beaches, but with fewer dogs and people. So the project calls for the preservation of some salt ponds, although with reduced salinity, said John Krause, Fish and Game biologist.

Economic impacts

Restoring wetlands isn't just beneficial for the environment, it has an economic impact as well, Wilcox said.

Wetlands improve water quality and provide sediment control and protection from sea-level rise, Wilcox said.

In addition, they're likely to draw more people to the shoreline to enjoy the scenery.

Wetland restoration is not inexpensive, however. Acquiring the 15,000 acres cost $100 million, and the planning and levee breaches cost millions more. The parcel opened Tuesday cost more than $4 million to restore.

"I grew up in Oakland, and to see this restored is incredible," said Austin Payne, an engineer for Ducks Unlimited, which worked with the state on the Hayward restoration. "For my kids, all these areas will be open to them."

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Additional articles:

And now for some good news, Legal Planet Blog, February 6, 2011

http://legalplanet.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/and-now-for-some-good-news/

Restoration Project Changes Look Of SD Bay, 10 News (including video)

http://www.10news.com/news/28967865/detail.html

Bay salt pond restoration reaches milestone tomorrow, KQED

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2011/09/12/bay-salt-pond-restoration-reaches-milestone-tomorrow/

Levee breach bringing new life to Hayward shoreline, Contra Costa Times

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_18888220

Levee breach marks key step in wetlands restoration, East Bay News

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=8352745

Blue Carbon Webinar

2011-09-14T04:01:00.002-04:00

Blue Carbon - Another Reason to Love Coastal Habitats

Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 12:00-1:00 PM US EST

- - - - -

For remote access via webinar, please fill out the registration form a few minutes before the meeting is scheduled to begin. The Meeting Number is 742656968; the Passcode is brownbag. For audio in the US and Canada, dial 866-833-7307. The participant passcode is 8986360.

http://www.mymeetings.com/nc/join.php?sigKey=mymeetings&i=742656968&=brownbag&t=c

- - - - -

Emily Pidgeon, Conservation International and Linwood Pendleton, NOAA and Duke University

Did you know that coastal habitats such as mangroves, salt marshes, and sea grasses store significant amounts of carbon and have great potential for greenhouse gas mitigation? Dazzle your colleagues and friends with your newfound knowledge of international and U.S. efforts to better understand and protect the use of these coastal habitats for carbon storage and sequestration.

You’ll learn the answers to questions including:

What do we know about how coastal habitats affect global carbon fluxes?
How can “blue carbon” help protect coastal habitats?
What are some of the hot national and international opportunities related to “blue carbon”?
What is NOAA’s role with respect to “blue carbon”? How might blue carbon play a role in your office?

________________________

Brief notes from webinar:

NOAA is excited about Blue Carbon, both on the domestic and international front.

There is a dire need for Blue Carbon pilot projects, especially where financial transactions take place.

There is also interest in bundling Blue Carbon with Payments for other Ecosystem Services (PES), but much work needs to be done

-Steven

Potential Bundled Blue Carbon / Sea Turtle PES Approach?

2011-09-06T08:32:00.002-04:00

New research illustrates that the conservation of Blue Carbon ecosystems, mangrove forests and not just seagrass meadows, can aid sea turtles (see following BBC article).

Sea turtles are an iconic and well loved species. A few promising sea turtle Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) plans are being explored, examples include:

A Global Survey of Sea Turtle Payment Incentive Programs

Watamu Turtle Watch Nest Protection Programme (Kenya)

Marine Turtles, Ecosystem Services and Human Welfare in the Marine Ecosystems of the Caribbean Sea

Perhaps there is a potential for a bundled marine PES and Blue Carbon approach? Payments for ecosystems services could combine the following:

Payments for sea turtle conservation or financing through related sustainable tourism; and

Payments for carbon stored by mangroves and seagrasses.

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'Hidden' hawksbill turtles found

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC Nature, 3 September 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14735144

The findings could help explain why the species has gone undetected in the region for so long (Hawksbill turtle image by Sterling Zumbrun)

Scientists have found hawksbill turtles "hiding" in mangrove forests of the eastern Pacific.

The team, that has been tracking the turtles for three years, also found that the critically endangered animals nested in these estuaries.

The discovery of this previously unknown sea turtle habitat was published recently in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

It could explain why the species went undetected in the region for so long.

Mangrove forests, which are unique coastal tree and shrub habitats, are also under threat. They could represent an important breeding and nesting site for the species, which was thought to depend on coral reefs.

Hawksbill turtle crawling out to see with a satellite tracker on its back (Image: Alexander Gaos)

Alexander Gaos, a conservation scientist with San Diego State University and the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative, led the research.

He and his colleagues tracked hawksbills in four countries - El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Ecuador - using satellite tracking tags glued to the turtles' backs.

These trackers revealed that adult hawksbill turtles in the eastern Pacific inhabited in-shore mangrove estuaries.

"For upwards of five decades sea turtle scientists thought hawksbills had [disappeared from] the eastern Pacific Ocean", Dr Gaos told BBC Nature.

"Despite hundreds of sea turtle projects and scientists focusing efforts in the region, no one had located hawksbills.

Our findings help explain this… it's hard to spot hawksbills in mangrove estuaries."

Dr Gaos said that the turtles might be spending their entire lives in these "cryptic habitats".

"Couple that with the fact that there are very few individuals left - hawksbills in the eastern Pacific are one of the world's most endangered sea turtle populations - and it's no wonder researchers didn't know about them!"

The scientists worked with local fishermen and even illegal egg collectors, in order to find hawksbill turtles to fit their tags to.

They hope their revelations about the species' habitat will inform conservation efforts.

Why the turtles were "seeking shelter" in mangroves was not clear.

The scientists think it might be a recent adaptation brought on by a lack of their more typical habitat of coral reefs in the region.

Dr Gaos said: " We now have a better idea of where to look for them, which may help us direct research and conservation of the species, upon which their survival may ultimately depend."

____________________

More information:

Paying Poseidon: Financing the Protection of Valuable Ecosystem Services (Forest Trends)

Payments for Ecosystem Services: Getting Started in Marine and Coastal Ecosystems (Forest Trends)

Blue carbon could be Shark Bay gold

2011-08-31T09:51:00.000-04:00

Blue carbon could be Shark Bay gold

A researcher from the University of Western Australia says the extensive seagrass meadows underneath WA’s World-Heritage-listed Shark Bay form one of the world’s largest ‘blue carbon’ sinks.

Published: 29 August 2011

http://www.ecosmagazine.com/?paper=EC11021

Seagrass meadows at Shark Bay, WA. Researchers are investigating the value of seagrass habitats in sequestering carbon. (Image credit: Gary Kendrick/UWA)

Professor Jim Fourqurean calculates the value of the sequestered carbon at more than eight billion dollars, using the carbon price proposed by the Federal Government of $23 per tonne.

‘When you think of carbon storage and ecosystems, you generally think of canopies of trees, so a lot of attention has gone into forests,’ says Professor Fourqurean.

‘But there is as much carbon on average stored in a seagrass meadow as there is stored in a forest.

‘There are about 4000 square kilometres (400 000 hectares) of seagrasses in the bay, which places it among the largest seagrass meadows that have been recorded in the world.

Professor Fourqurean has calculated the amount of carbon dioxide stored in the seagrass meadows as being, on average, 884 tonnes CO2 equivalents per hectare.

‘So if you multiply that 884 tonnes of CO2 by 400 000 hectares of seagrass, you get about 350 million tonnes of carbon stored in the seagrass meadows underneath Shark Bay,’ he says.

Professor Fourqurean is involved in the global Blue Carbon initiative, a relatively new international scientific network aiming to preserve seagrass habitats as a climate mitigation strategy.

Blue carbon researchers are also exploring the monetary value of the carbon in seagrass meadows as part of a possible offset scheme – which could benefit developing countries, in particular, in protecting seagrass and mangrove habitat.

‘One of the reasons we're doing that is seagrasses are disappearing at a rate faster than the rate at which coral reefs are disappearing and the tropical forests are disappearing,’ says Professor Fourqurean.

‘It's not a simple policy issue to solve, because a lot of marine environments don't have a single owner.

‘The reason seagrasses are disappearing is not because of land conversion, like tropical forests; usually, seagrasses are lost because of poor watershed management practices and declining water quality near shore.’

Shark Bay's seagrass meadows are recognised as a vital habitat for dugongs and sea turtles, and as a food source for the Shark Bay prawn and scallop fisheries.

Seagrass meadows promoted as carbon sink

2011-08-26T09:46:00.000-04:00

Seagrass meadows promoted as carbon sink

Updated August 23, 2011 13:22:13

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-23/shark-bay-seagrass-carbon-link/2851630

Jim Fourqurean dives near Shark Bay to research the extensive seagrass meadows

A new study has revealed how seagrass meadows off Western Australia's coast could help mitigate climate change.

Jim Fourqurean conducted research on the extensive seagrass meadows at Shark Bay with the aim of showing that such reserves store as much carbon dioxide as trees.

Shark Bay's seagrass reserves stretch for 400,000 hectares, making it one of the largest in the world.

Professor Fourqurean calculated that the meadows would be worth more than $8 billion if priced under the Federal Government's proposed carbon tax.

He hopes the study will encourage the Government to consider including seagrass as part of a carbon offset scheme.

Shark Bay seagrass 'potentially an $8 billion carbon sink'

2011-08-23T06:03:00.000-04:00

Shark Bay seagrass 'potentially an $8 billion carbon sink'

Monday, 22 August 2011

http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201108223834/business-and-industry/shark-bay-seagrass-potentially-8-billion-carbon-sink

Shark Bay's extensive seagrass meadows act as a massive carbon sink which stores more than eight billion dollars' worth of carbon dioxide if valued according to the Federal Government's proposed carbon price.

That's the figure calculated by researcher Professor Jim Fourqurean who is part of a new global initiative aimed at utilising seagrass meadows to help mitigate climate change.

Professor Fourqurean has been researching the seagrasses of Shark Bay - a World Heritage area - as part of his work with The University of Western Australia's Oceans Institute, where he has been the Gledden Visiting Fellow.

"Shark Bay's seagrass meadows are a vital habitat for dugongs and sea turtles, and they provide the food for fisheries such as the Shark Bay prawn and scallop fisheries," he said.

"There are about 4,000 square kilometres (400,000 hectares) of seagrasses in the bay which places it among the largest seagrass meadows that have been recorded in the world.

"When you think of carbon storage and ecosystems, you generally think of canopies of trees, so a lot of attention has gone into forests.

"But there is as much carbon on average stored in a seagrass meadow as there is stored in a forest. It's not stored as a living biomass; it's stored as soil carbon."

Professor Fourqurean has calculated the amount of carbon dioxide stored in the seagrass meadows, as part of work involving his Oceans Institute colleagues Winthrop Professor Gary Kendrick and Emeritus Professor Di Walker who are undertaking a Caring for Our Country project funded by the Australian Government.

"My average number is 884 tonnes CO2 equivalents per hectare," he says.

"So if you multiply that 884 tonnes of CO2 by 400,000 hectares of seagrass, you get about 350 million tonnes of carbon stored in the seagrass meadows underneath Shark Bay."

The Federal Government proposes introducing a carbon tax which prices carbon at $23 per tonne, which means the seagrass carbon offset is potentially worth a considerable amount.

"So about $8.13 billion of carbon is stored in the seagrass meadows of Shark Bay - if that carbon had a price on it in the world market," he says.

Professor Fourqurean is involved in the Blue Carbon initiative, along with UWA Oceans Institute Director Professor Carlos Duarte. The initiative is a relatively new international scientific body aiming to preserve seagrass habitats as a climate mitigation strategy. Part of the work is exploring the monetary value of the carbon in seagrass meadows as part of a possible offset scheme.

"One of the reasons we're doing that is seagrasses are disappearing at a rate faster than the rate at which coral reefs are disappearing and the tropical forests are disappearing," he says.

"It's not a simple policy issue to solve, because a lot of marine environments don't have a single owner.

"And the reason seagrasses are disappearing is not because of land conversion, like tropical forests are being lost. Usually seagrasses are lost because of poor watershed management practices and declining water quality near shore.

"So trying to figure out how to capture carbon credits to pay for the maintenance and the reduction of the loss - or maybe even the creation of new seagrass meadows in order to increase the carbon storage - is conceptually difficult."

Blue Carbon Photography Contest (Announcement)

2011-07-08T09:23:00.006-04:00

Grassroots organizations involved in coastal and marine conservation are invited to participate in UNEP/GRID-Arendal’s Blue Carbon Photography Contest. Selected photographs are intended for use in a special image-based publication for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa (COP17), and for an online image resource - the Blue Carbon Photo Library.

The theme of the contest “Life on the coasts - Blue Carbon” focuses on the importance of a healthy marine environment in coastal livelihoods.

UNEP/GRID-Arendal is looking for iconic images in two categories – People & the Environment, and Coastal & Marine Ecosystems. Examples include coastal and underwater scenes, community based restoration and conservation projects, our connection to healthy coastal ecosystems (e.g. fisheries, tourism), and how a changing ocean and climate impact the daily life of people and communities living along the coast.

As long as there is a clear affiliation with a grassroots organization, all professional and non-professional photographers worldwide are welcome to submit. Organization logos will also be highlighted in the special publication. Blue Climate Solutions has offered a digital underwater camera as a prize for the best image. Additional sponsors are welcome (click here).

INFORMATION

For Announcement and Competition Rules see:
http://www.grida.no/marine/activities/blue-carbon.aspx?id=4804
(see Photo Contest pages)

SUBMISSION

To submit your images, please see the Competition Rules and send all submissions to: photocontest@grida.no

Personal Release forms are required for all images that include recognizable subjects and children (see Competition Rules).

DEADLINE

The deadline for submitting pictures to UNEP/GRID-Arendal is SEPTEMBER 30, 2011.

Finalists will be announced in October 2011.

After reviewing the Competition Rules, you will be fully prepared to enter the contest.

Good Luck to everyone!

Blue Carbon & Coastal Ecosystem-Based Management

2011-07-08T07:37:00.001-04:00

Just yesterday, I was fortunate enough to attend a great presentation by Tundi Agardy on coastal ecosystem based management and a new guide produced by UNEP. Definitely useful for the blue carbon concept and recommended reading! Thanks Tundi, and all the other authors, and UNEP. -Steven

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Taking steps toward marine and coastal ecosystem based management - An introductory guide by UNEP

http://www.indiawaterportal.org/node/18525

This guide by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) seeks to assist countries and communities to take steps towards making marine and coastal ecosystem-based management operational, from strategic planning to on-site implementation. An important aim of this guide is to facilitate the implementation of UNEP’s overarching Ecosystem Management Programme and new Marine and Coastal Strategy in countries and regions in line with its Medium Term Strategy 2010-13.

Healthy marine and coastal ecosystems provide many valuable services ranging from food security, resources for economic growth and recreation alongside tourism and coastline protection. They are also recognized as crucial reservoirs of biodiversity at a time when the loss of species on both land and in the sea is an increasing cause for concern.

The Marine and Coastal Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) guide outlines operational considerations in an accessible language, drawing upon practical experiences and lessons across the globe from tropical coastlines to temperate estuaries and polar ocean ecosystems. An important message is that this is an incremental process and there are different paths toward EBM. Cross boundary considerations and working with neighbours and even countries far away will be an essential component.

The target audience of the guide includes planners and decision-makers in local, national and regional governments and communities across a broad spectrum of interests and uses. The guide is not a technical manual or textbook. Rather, it is an introduction to EBM principles and applications, providing an overview of core elements and pathways to getting started.

This guide is intended to complement UNEP’s work, such as the Green Economy, providing guidance on making changes in the way we interact with ecosystems, as well as the Blue Carbon Initiative, which explores the potential for mitigating climate change by investing and re-investing in healthy coastal ecosystems that capture and store carbon.

EBM offers a valuable solution for harnessing marine and coastal ecosystems in adapting to climate change and other potential disasters and can prove to be a valuable resource in assisting coastal countries and communities to move from theory to practical ecosystem-based management of oceans and coasts.

The guide is divided into the following chapters:

Introduction

Section I. Making The Case For Marine and coastal EBM

Why is change necessary?
Defining EBM
How is EBM an improvement on current management?
EBM is science-based
EBM can grow from existing legal and regulatory frameworks
EBM embraces the precautionary approach
Costs and benefits of EBM

Section II. Examining the core elements of EBM

Core Element 1: Recognizing connections within and across ecosystems
Core Element 2: Applying an ecosystem services perspective
Core Element 3: Understanding and addressing cumulative impacts
Core Element 4: Managing for multiple objectives
Core Element 5: Embracing change, learning, and adapting EBM

Section III: Moving toward EBM

Visioning Phase: Establish a Foundation for EBM
Identify target geographic area and key concerns
Build interest, expand participation, and create settings for sectors to come together
Develop a common understanding of the ecosystem
Take stock of existing management practices
Set overarching goals

Planning Phase: Chart the EBM Process

Assess the ecosystem
Evaluate EBM governance options, and create legal frameworks to support multi-sectoral management
Identify measurable objectives
Prioritize threats, evaluate management options, and examine trade-offs
Choose management strategies for EBM implementation

Implementation Phase: Apply and Adapt EBM

Monitor, evaluate, and adapt
Continue to communicate and educate
Secure sustainable financing for EBM implementation over time

Concluding thoughts

Download the guide from below (size 10.07 MB):
Taking steps toward marine and coastal ecosystem based management - An introductory guide by UNEP (2011)
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Seagrass blues

2011-07-07T05:22:00.000-04:00

Seagrass blues

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/online/4459/seagrass-blues?page=0%2C1

29 June 2011, by Andrew J Wight, Cosmos Online

Broken sea grasses float over a degraded coral reef

The world's seagrass meadows are under threat and with them, species diversity and economic activity - but there's another reason to care about their fate.

SQUISHY AND LARGELY hidden, seagrass meadows may have a more difficult time grabbing headlines than their coral reef cousins, but researchers are now finding that preserving these forests of the sea may have a vital role in the climate change puzzle.

If you were to look out over Port Phillip Bay as it laps against the Melbourne shoreline, you are close to some of the most diverse marine habitats on the planet - and that's just a small part of Australia's seagrass meadows.

Along our 32,000km coastline, there's some 90,000 square kilometres of sea grass meadows, each made up of individual seagrass plants: mainly large, leafy and sun-loving.

Out of the 72 known seagrass species, Australia has 26 of them, some of which are found nowhere else on Earth, such as the endangered Posidonia sinuosa of Western Australia.

Seagrass meadows provide homes, food and nurseries for many marine creatures, in particular serving as feeding grounds for dugongs and western rock lobsters (Panulirus Cygnus) and breeding grounds for many commercially important fish species.

They are also important for water quality, filtering water and serving as an indicator of the health of the marine ecosystem, but the health of the meadows themselves has become of increasing concern.

In a recent study, 15 of the 72 known species of seagrasses were listed as 'Endangered', 'Vulnerable' or 'Near Threatened' on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Seagrass researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, Peter Macreadie says there are multiple factors that make seagrass vulnerable, but the biggest threat is the creation of anoxic dead zones by algal blooms.

"Seagrass are plants that grow on the seafloor, so when nutrient runoff is taken up by the algae, the algae become dense and it blocks the sunlight from reaching the seagrass."

There is also direct damage done by humans via dredging or by boat propellers. If some plants are disturbed in the middle of a meadow, the 'hole' will actually get bigger and bigger, eating away the meadow from the inside. "We know we've lost 30% of the world's sea grasses already," says Macreadie.

Many seagrass scientists are now concerned about changes in water temperature caused by the apparent effects of climate change, he added. "Seagrass is changing its range and distribution, but they can only tolerate a certain set of temperatures."

Paradoxically, seagrass may be part of the solution to this threat.

"When we think about carbon sinks, most of us think about tropical rainforest like the Amazon," says Macreadie. "But seagrasses, mangroves and salt marshes cover 1% of the seafloor, but are estimated to sequester 70% of the ocean's carbon."

The first Blue Carbon report came out in 2010 and detailed how coastal ecosystems, including seagrass sequester carbon. According to Macreadie, it is estimated that seagrass beds can store for carbon for thousands of years, as opposed to the dozens of years of terrestrial plants.

"Like any plant, seagrasses go through seasons and left undisturbed, a typical plant could last for years and years. But unlike, say a rainforest, when seagrass shed their leaves or die, the leaves, roots and rhizomes don't decompose readily. That litter gets buried beneath the seagrass meadows and layers start to form."

Research groups from Europe have found that this layer of fibrous material gets locked away in deep sediments, and the amount of carbon sequestered can be estimated.

"We can age these cores and we're finding seagrasses up to 6m deep stored for thousands of years," said Macreadie.

It is hoped that by showing the capacity of seagrass to store carbon, they will be better candidates for funding and awareness in the same way that forests are conserved for their biodiversity and carbon storage capacity. There are, however, some hurdles to overcome.

The combined threat of increased pollution, increased population pressures from humans and their slow regeneration time means world is struggling to hold on to the seagrass it has, let alone expand their current range.

Past director of the University of Western Australia's Oceans Institute, Gary Kendrick says restoration can get expensive.

"I've been working on a five-year restoration project and the chances of full recovery are still slim, as restoration is high risk and high expenditure. The seagrass restoration itself can cost anywhere from AU$8,000 a hectare to hundreds of thousands of dollars per hectare," he says.

"There are studies of a field that cost $1 million a hectare to restore. That's about ten times what it costs to restore a forest. It is much easier to conserve the seagrass habitats we already have in the first place, rather than trying to restore them after the fact. In Australia you can count the research groups on one hand, but the awareness of the importance of seagrass is growing."

What Kendrick hopes to do in the next five years is to bring together Australian groups in a research centre. "Rehabilitation is going to cost, so we'll look at what are the big threats to the seagrass and how do we best counter them?"

Mick Keough, at the Department of Zoology at the University of Melbourne, who has recently received funding to identify key seagrass habitats in Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay says the situation is improving for seagrass in Australia. "Some state governments, Western Australia and New South Wales in particular have strong emphasis on protection of seagrass."

But he adds that while seagrasses are seen as important by government, public perception is a real problem. "They aren't as charismatic as the reefs, but their role in nutrient cycles are a really important part of the ecosystem. I don't think anyone sees them as a pest anymore, but the don't have the same passion as they might for the barrier reef."

Researchers need to understand how disturbances affect seagrass habitats and the processes that are important for their recovery, Keough adds.

"Within the Bay, many species are found predominantly in seagrass meadows, and some species actually rely on seagrasses for survival in part of their life cycle," he said.

So when you step on that squishy piece of seagrass on the beach, don't curse: without these humble plants, our seas would be less rich with life, our water more turbid and our climate more turbulent.

Update 2: Blue Carbon & SBSTA 34 (Bonn, Germany)

2011-06-19T07:50:00.001-04:00

Frederica Bietta, Papua New Guinea (right) intervenes on their proposed agenda item blue carbon

Further discussions on blue carbon at SBSTA 34, Bonn Germany. From the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) report for Thursday, June 16, at SBSTA 34:

On the SBSTA side, the issue of blue carbon played out on center stage. While the majority of parties supported considering related issues under existing SBSTA agenda items, Bolivia and Venezuela opposed this, voicing concerns that market mechanisms will not offer the nature adequate protection. Some observers also shared concern over turning “blue carbon into another REDD+.” One delegate characterized blue carbon as an example of why interlinkages between the Rio Conventions should be reinforced.

Delegates waiting for the SBSTA plenary to resume after 10 pm were entertained by chanting interpreters claiming that “there is no body like the SBSTA, the body of substance.” Some also composed cheerleading refrains on blue carbon. “Give me a B....give me an L…,” they shouted in jest. On the SBI side, one insider tried to reassure tired observers waiting for the outcome of late-night informal consultations: “Give us time, we are trying to do good things here.”

Blue Carbon Policy Options Assessment

2011-06-16T15:57:00.004-04:00

Blue Carbon Policy Options Assessment

As part of an effort to promote the inclusion of the blue carbon concept in key climate-policy frameworks, Linden Trust commissioned Climate Focus to review and evaluate the various policy options available for blue carbon. The report, released on June 15, 2011, and titled 'Blue Carbon - Policy Options Assessment,' aims to help the blue carbon community in understanding and prioritizing policy options.

The report’s Priority Recommendations follow:

A number of opportunities exist to promote blue carbon as a legitimate climate change activity. However, promoting blue carbon as a new and separate agenda item under the UNFCCC in the same way as REDD+ was developed is unlikely to succeed. The current UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol negotiations are already overloaded and adding yet another item to the list may be counterproductive in the short term – especially before IPCC reporting guidelines have been developed and improved and the impact of blue carbon is better understood. Any advocacy within the UNFCCC should therefore be focused on improving IPCC guidelines and integrating blue carbon into the existing NAMA and REDD+ agendas. The following are therefore our recommended “High Priority” actions for the next 18 months.

1. Develop and improve IPCC reporting guidelines where they do not adequately cover blue carbon sinks and reservoirs carbon sinks and reservoirs carbon sinks and reservoirs carbon sinks and reservoirs. A lack of confidence in the quantification of net climate benefits of blue carbon is a barrier to finance and incentive mechanisms including carbon markets. A priority should therefore be to support scientific research without delay to better quantify emissions and removals from changes to blue carbon sinks and reservoirs, such as salt marshes and mangroves, and with a particular focus on sea grasses which currently fall outside IPCC guidelines. The IPCC has proposed a process to produce supplemental guidance on these ecosystems by 2013.

2. Ensure NAMAs include actions that address blue carbon. For some countries, blue carbon may be a significant mitigation opportunity. NAMAs offer a potential source of financing while methodologies for carbon measurement are being developed and improved. NAMAs should focus on a combination of “readiness” and demonstration activities for sea grasses, salt marshes, and non-forest mangroves. Mangroves considered forests can be included within REDD+ action. Readiness activities would focus on increasing a country’s understanding of emissions and removals from blue carbon sinks and reservoirs and their drivers of emissions, and what is needed to address them. Implementation should focus on demonstration activities to protect or restore blue carbon ecosystems, and may extend to an effort to access performance-based finance such as sectoral crediting or other mechanisms. It should be possible to work with at least two or three countries to develop and submit blue carbon NAMAs for funding within 18 months. Priority could be given to working with Nigeria, Bangladesh, Cuba, India, Mozambique, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines on readiness, and with Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and Malaysia on implementation.

3. Utilize REDD+, which has more developed policy structures and could include mangroves that meet the definition of a forest that meet the definition of a forest that meet the definition of a forest that meet the definition of a forest. Analysis and education is needed amongst developing countries to help them understand the implications that different forest definitions have on the inclusion of mangroves within REDD+. This should be capable of completion within a matter of months. Support is also needed for countries to gain a better understanding of the implications that mangrove forests may have on forest reference levels and reference emission levels developed by developing countries through 2011 and 2012 (as needed).

4. Leverage the multiple benefits of blue carbon to access financing. Protecting and restoring blue carbon sinks and reservoirs can have multiple benefits for climate change mitigation and adaptation, along with additional co-benefits such as biodiversity conservation. The ability to check a number of donor priorities or funding commitments within a single activity will increase the likelihood of accessing public funding from developed countries. A recommended short term priority is to access fast start finance to support the above activities. Accessing this funding should be possible within 18 months.

Click here for the full report: Blue Carbon Policy Options Assessment

Mangrove Conservation & Restoration - Central to Climate Challenge Mitigation

2011-06-16T14:27:00.002-04:00

Mangrove Conservation & Restoration - Central to Climate Challenge Mitigation

by Alfredo Quarto, Executive Director & Cofounder of Mangrove Action Project

Mangrove forest in Bangladesh.

We at Mangrove Action Project have been working for almost 20 years to promote the ecological value of mangrove forest wetlands. It has been an uphill battle to counter the negative image of the once mislabeled "muddy, mosquito infested wastelands." Governments finally began recognizing their importance and passed laws to protect the mangroves, but these laws were rarely enforced, so more and more mangroves were lost to shrimp farms, tourist development, golf courses, oil exploitation, urban and agricultural expansion and a multitude of other unsustainable, short-sighted development pressures. The rampant turning of millions of hectares of valuable wetlands to wastelands has had and is having tragic, long-term consequences.

Mangrove forests are vital for healthy coastal ecosystems in many regions of the world. They support an immense variety of sea life in intricate food webs associated directly with mangroves themselves. They are refuge for juvenile fish, crabs, shrimp and mollusks. Mangroves are also prime nesting and feeding sites for hundreds of migratory bird species. Additionally manatees, crab eating monkeys, Royal Bengal tigers, fishing cats, migratory birds, sea turtles and Mud Skippers utilize and depend upon mangrove wetlands.

More recently, it has come to the attention of mangrove ecologists that healthy mangrove forests play an important role in carbon sequestration—these unique ecosystems and corresponding wetlands account for nearly a third of the world’s terrestrial carbon stores (Ramsar Secretariat 2002). Dr. Ong Jin Eong of Malaysia has in his extensive research found that mangroves sequester 50 times more carbon in their soils than terrestrial tropical forests. Dr. Ong was one of the first to postulate that mangroves are key links in combating climate change.

Intact mangroves also protect coral reefs and sea grass beds from landward siltation and pollution runoff, while forming a natural coastal protection shield against floods, storms or other natural disasters such as the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and Hurricane Mitch of 1998. Beyond these irreplaceable ecosystem services, mangroves provide important socio-economic benefits to coastal communities, providing bountiful seafood, fruits, fuel wood, shelter, medicines and tannins.

Pond with mangrove stumps.

In spite of those important functions, more than 50% of the global mangrove forests have been destroyed over the last 100 years, most of this loss occurring in the last 30 years, mainly caused by human development. In addition, mangroves are vulnerable to negative effects caused by climate change such as rising sea levels, higher temperatures and natural disasters. Conservation and restoration programs in those areas degraded or ruined by unsustainable development are urgently needed. Because mangroves play such an important role in sequestering carbon, this approach will contribute to climate change mitigation through avoided destruction and restoration of ecosystems. The improvement of mangrove ecosystems will also enhance its function as a natural water treatment system and spawning grounds for fish, improving health and fishing possibilities, further benefiting marginalized local communities.

However, very few organisations so far have dealt effectively with mangrove restoration and relatively few experiences exist on successful, long-term mangrove rehabilitation. These failures in effective mangrove restoration are worrisome in the light of the millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours spent at the task, not to mention the millions of mangrove seedlings unsuccessfully planted all in neat rows in the wrong places with the wrong species and at the wrong time.

Failures are bound to happen, partly because adaptation to climate change and increased disaster risk through utilization of natural vegetative protection shields such as mangroves is a relatively new concept, relying on ecosystem services instead of engineering technologies and hard infrastructures to reduce the severity of disasters. Nevertheless, we need to be more proactive in learning from these obvious failures, and not repeat them ourselves or encourage others to do the same. In light of the continuation of these “traditional” methods of hand planting mangrove propagules or seedlings, it seems most restoration practitioners are reluctant to implement changes in their overall strategy involving restoration.

MAP has responding to this apparent impasse by promoting a more innovative approach that we believe is both more cost effective and successful in restoring mangrove wetlands by paying special attention to coastal hydrology and those disturbances that have caused the problems of mangrove loss in the first place. This technique is called Ecological Mangrove Restoration (EMR), which was developed over the years by MAP’s chief technical advisor, Robin Lewis, who demonstrated that EMR ensures restoration of more biodiverse, healthy mangrove wetlands. Successful approaches can then be replicated to restore mangroves in other communities, regions or countries.

Demonstrating Ecological Mangrove Restoration at Ban Talae Nok Village located on Thailand's North Andaman Coast in Ranong province.

Ecological Mangrove Restoration Defined

Ecological Mangrove Restoration has been defined as “the process of repairing damage caused by humans to the diversity and dynamics of indigenous ecosystems” (Jackson et al. 1995) Ecological Mangrove Restoration is a holistic approach to mangrove restoration that also includes a view of the proposed plant and animal community to be restored as part of a larger ecosystem with other ecological communities that also have functions to be protected or restored. EMR aims at the restoration of certain ecosystem traits and the replication of natural functions. It has been reported that mangrove forests around the world can self-repair or successfully undergo secondary succession over periods of 15-30 years if: 1) the normal tidal hydrology is not disrupted and 2) the availability of waterborne seeds or seedlings (propagules) of mangroves from adjacent stands is not disrupted or blocked (Watson 1928, Lewis 1982, Cintron-Molero 1992).

Because mangrove forests may recover without active restoration efforts, it has been recommended that restoration planning should first look at the potential existence of stresses such as blocked tidal inundation that might prevent secondary succession from occurring, and plan on removing that stress before attempting restoration (Hamilton and Snedaker 1985, Cintron-Molero 1992). The second step is to determine by observation if natural seedling recruitment is occurring once the stress has been removed. Only if natural recovery is not occurring should the third step of considering assisting natural recovery through planting be considered.

Unfortunately, many mangrove restoration projects move immediately into hand planting of mangrove seedlings without determining why natural recovery has not occurred. There may even be a large capital investment in growing mangrove seedlings in a nursery before stress factors are assessed. This too often results in major failures of planting efforts.

Planting mangrove propagules.

Six Steps To Successful Mangrove Forest Restoration

In collaboration with communities, organizations and local government, MAP will work to:

Understand both the individual species and the community ecology of the naturally occurring mangrove species at the site, paying particular attention to patterns of reproduction, distribution, and successful seedling establishment.
Understand the normal hydrology that controls the distribution and successful establishment and growth of targeted mangrove species.
Assess the modifications of the mangrove environment that occurred and that currently prevent natural secondary succession.
Select appropriate restoration areas through application of Steps 1-3, above, that are both likely to succeed in rehabilitating a forest ecosystem and are cost effective. Consider the available labor to carry out the projects, including adequate monitoring of their progress towards meeting quantitative goals established prior to restoration. This step includes resolving land ownership/use issues necessary for ensuring long-term access to and conservation of the site.
Design the restoration program at appropriate sites selected in Step 4, above, to restore the appropriate hydrology and utilize natural volunteer mangrove recruitment for natural plant establishment.
Utilize actual planting of propagules or seedlings only after determining through Steps 1-5, above, that natural recruitment will not provide the quantity of successfully established seedlings, rate of stabilization, or rate of growth as required for project success.

Today, MAP is working with local communities and partnering with grassroots NGOs to conserve and restore mangroves, promoting the Ecological Mangrove Restoration (EMR) approach as the most effective, long-term approach to mangrove restoration. We are trying to discourage the popular but ineffective way of hand planting mangrove seedlings or propagules, usually with one species- the red mangrove or rhizophora- that is still the most popular approach, which unfortunately is establishing low-biodiversity monocultures or plantations, instead of healthy, biodiverse mangrove wetlands.

MAP is currently seeking support for our innovative and collaborative Ecological Mangrove Restoration and Training (EMR) workshops and follow-up restoration and monitoring program. This program is slated to take place in both Latin America and Asia over a three to five year timeframe and will train and engage mangrove forest communities in restoring and managing coastal mangrove forest ecosystems for the long-term benefits of the participant communities. Our first EMR Training Workshop is slated for July 6, 2011 in Jiquilisaco Bay in El Salvador. Jiquilisco is part of the “Mangrove Corridor” which runs along the coastlines of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. So the potential outreach from the workshop in El Salvador could reach much further along this entire Corridor.

Ban Talae Nok's Ecological Mangrove Restoration team.

Involving the Local Community

To involve the communities from the start of the project is vital to the program’s success. The community will need to develop a management plan to deal with the cause(s) of mangrove destruction in the first place. The destruction could be due to over exploitation for fuel wood, illegal cutting and/or development encroachment such as shrimp farming, grazing by livestock or other conflicting uses. Often it will take time to develop and implement a workable solution, while other times a viable strategy may not be found, which will prevent moving ahead with mangrove restoration plans. Once the management plan is successfully being implemented, mangrove restoration can move forward in parallel.

Next, the EMR approach will be introduced to local community members interested in serving as future monitors and resource managers at the sites selected. This presentation could be quite effective in encouraging the local community to get involved, which is one of our main points of interest to help build the capacity of local communities to better manage and conserve their natural resource base. Strong community stewardship will ensure a central stakeholder role in future mangrove management decision-making processes. A program of monitoring and evaluation of restored sites by local community members is built into the EMR process with a 3-5 year monitoring plan to ensure success of the endeavor.

Towards Reversing the Losses

We must first address the need to halt further losses of our marine coastal wetland areas. Their intrinsic value is constantly increasing from what we once naively assumed. All of our past economic valuations have fallen far short of the reality, mainly because of lack of knowledge as to the amazing ecosystems we have for too long taken for granted. Those muddy swamps are possibly now our ultimate remedy to the planetary sickness caused by rampant human folly.

Now is the time to take these issues forward the planned for a discussing climate change in what could be a last attempt to curb our civilization's penchant for unlimited and unreasonable growth.

Web Sites and Literature Cited

Lewis, RR. III. 2005. Ecological engineering for successful management and restoration of mangrove forests. Ecological Engineering 24(4 SI): 403-418. (Available at www.mangroverestoration.com in both English and Spanish)

Lewis, RR. III. 2009. Methods and criteria for successful mangrove forest restoration. Chapter 28., pages 787-800 in GME Perillo, E Wolanski, DR Cahoon, and MM Brinson (eds.)

Coastal Wetlands: An Integrated Ecosystem Approach. Elsevier Press.

Lewis, RR, B. Brown, A. Quarto, J. Enright, E. Corets, J. Primavera, T Ravishankar, O Stanley and R Djamaluddin. 2006. Five steps to successful ecological restoration of mangroves. Mangrove Action Project/Yayasan Akar Rumput Laut. Yogyakarta, Indonesia. 64 p.

Ramsar Secretariat (2002): Climate change and wetlands: impacts, adaptation and mitigation. COP8, Information Paper DOC 11.

Samson, MS., and RN Rollon. 2008. Growth performance of planted mangroves in the Philippines: revisiting forest management strategies. Ambio 37:234-240.

UNEP/GRID-Arendal/ Food and Agriculture Organization/UNESCO, Blue Carbon: the role of healthy oceans in binding carbon- a Rapid Response Assessment report compiled, 2010

=========

For the Future with Mangroves,

Mangrove Action Project

PO Box 1854

Port Angeles, WA 98362-0279

USA (360) 452-5866

mangroveap@olympus.net

www.mangroveactionproject.org

_____________________________

Guest blog (including images) by Mangroves for the Future (many thanks Alfredo!)

Update: Blue Carbon & SBSTA 34 (Bonn, Germany)

2011-06-15T05:09:00.002-04:00

Blue Carbon discussed at UN Climate Change Discussions - SBSTA 34, Bonn Germany

Blue carbon was discussed again on Friday, June 10, at the 34th session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 34).

According to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) report, SBSTA Facilitator Ould-Dada noted that a number of parties were of the view that blue carbon was not mature enough and that related issues, such as mangroves, could be addressed under REDD+ (see ENB, Vol 12 No 507 - 11 June 2011).

Discussions will continue…

Words of Caution for Blue Carbon on World Oceans Day

2011-06-09T11:58:00.003-04:00

To mark World Oceans Day, the United Nations hosted a panel discussion at its Headquarters in New York. The theme of the discussion was “Our oceans: greening our future.”

One of the panelists was had some comments that can be taken as some of the first words of caution for blue carbon. During her presentation titled “Oceans and the social impact,” Ms. Chandrika Sharma, speaking on behalf of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), noted the need to ensure human rights and access to local ecosystems when pursuing a carbon market approach for oceans and mangroves:

“I think what we are bit worried about, the whole thing of the green economy, is the whole issue of valuation of nature, commodification of nature.

The kind of payments for ecosystem services, where you can actually buy carbon credits in another ecosystem, say in the oceans, or in mangrove ecosystems, where the whole ecosystem becomes just something which is for carbon sequestration.

It doesn’t remain an ecosystem that is used by people, and who people have been using for centuries, and people have a right to control and manage.

So to the extent that such unregulated marketing of ecosystems undermines peoples control over their ecosystems, I think we need to be very cautious about.

I think we have already had experiences with REDD+ schemes where indigenous people feel that they have lost control over the forests and the ecosystems that supported them, and has negative implications for human rights.”

Something to keep in mind as blue carbon progresses...

The entire panel discussion can be found at the United Nations Webcast site:

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/06/panel-discussion-world-oceans-day.html

(comments related to blue carbon can be found from 20: 07 to 21:10)

Blue Carbon Introduced into UN Climate Change Discussions

2011-06-08T13:04:00.001-04:00

On Monday, June 6, blue carbon was introduced into official climate change discussions of the United Nations. Blue carbon was discussed on Monday and Wednesday at the 34th session of Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), in Bonn, Germany (6-17 June 2011). The SBSTA is an important climate change meeting as it provides the Conference of the Parties (COP) with advice on scientific, technological and methodological matters (e.g., it helps to set the agenda for the next international climate change meeting - COP17, to be held in Durban South Africa, 28 Nov - 9 Dec, 2011)

According to the record of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) report from Monday, Papua New Guinea (PNG) introduced the issue of blue carbon on the agenda of the SBSTA, under the heading “On blue carbon: coastal marine systems.” PNG explained that the topic would include consideration of wetlands and coastal ecosystems (as carbon sinks). The US supported blue carbon’s inclusion. However, Brazil noted that blue carbon might not be mature enough for consideration (see ENB, Vol 12 No 503 - 7 June 2011).

On Wednesday, during input on research needs and priorities, “Papua New Guinea discussed the role of blue carbon within the SBSTA, saying that the science on mangrove and salt marsh sinks is robust enough for policy consideration. Noting that mangroves are already included under REDD+, she [speaker for PNG] emphasized the need to monitor the human impact and carbon sequestration potential of other ecosystems. Papua New Guinea also proposed holding a workshop on blue carbon at SBSTA 36” (ENB, Vol 12 No 505 - 9 June 2011).

These discussions represent the first time that blue carbon has been officially discussed by States at an UN climate change conference.

Stay tuned…

Mangroves to receive huge boost from new carbon credit rules

2011-06-07T05:15:00.002-04:00

http://iucn.org/?7595/Mangroves-to-receive-huge-boost-from-new-carbon-credit-rules

Mangroves to receive huge boost from new carbon credit rules

06 June 2011 | News story

A new method for calculating the role that mangrove restoration plays in slowing climate change, by capturing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, has been adopted.

The methodology is adopted under the UN climate change convention’s Kyoto Protocol, as part of the Clean Development Mechanism that supports emission reduction projects in developing countries. .

This will provide a significant boost to restoration efforts for mangrove forests, which grow in tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions and provide a wide range of biological services such as nurseries for juvenile fish and a source of timber for local populations.

“The fact that this new methodology is now part of the Clean Development Mechanism should allow us to achieve similar results for other types of coastal and marine ecosystems,” says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Director of the IUCN Global Marine and Polar Programme. “Adopting new policies and financing mechanisms for protection and management of our oceans should be at the heart of nature-based solutions to climate change.”

Only recently has the important role of mangroves in trapping carbon from the atmosphere and locking it into sediments begun to be recognised. Many scientists believe that mangroves are far more efficient at trapping carbon than tropical and temperate forests, whose role as climate regulators has been recognised and established longer.

The methodology was developed by IUCN, Ramsar and Sylvestrum for the Clean Development Mechanism and was based on field experiences from a 3-year partnership with Danone. The project was initiated by food and water company Danone and its brand Evian in partnership with IUCN and Ramsar, which implemented large mangrove restoration initiatives together with local communities in Africa and Asia..

“The new methodology will open up opportunities for mangrove restoration on a far greater scale,” enthuses Bernard Giraud, Danone Vice President of Sustainability. “It will have a very significant impact on local communities and will stimulate companies to make corporate-level investment and grasp new carbon offsetting opportunities in coastal regions.”

Mangrove forests are just one of several coastal ecosystems that play an important role in regulating climate and are commonly referred to as “blue carbon” solutions. Others include salt marshes, seagrasses, kelp forests and wetlands.

Many mangroves become degraded through the upstream building of dams, roads and irrigation channels. The methodology also recognises the importance of automatic regeneration of mangroves, which can be achieved through changes to the upstream hydrology or “re-wetting.”

“Destruction of coastal habitats releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and destroys livelihoods,” says Prof Nicholas Davidson, Deputy Secretary General of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. “Well-planned and implemented restoration and protection of these ecosystems delivers very tangible benefits to local populations in tropical countries, and increases the ecosystems’ capacity to store carbon.”

Mangroves to the rescue

2011-05-23T10:58:00.000-04:00

Mangroves to the rescue

Island in Krabi becomes part of an innovative project aimed at alleviating climate change

http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/238362/mangroves-to-the-rescue

Published: 23/05/2011 at 12:00 AM, Bangkok Post

Krabi has long been a popular tourist destination, but now the southern province is becoming known for something more creative - using its low-profile islands in a carbon capture and storage project.

Prof Dr Sanit Aksornkoae (left), a director and acting president of the Thailand Environment Institute, plants mangrove seedlings with Kantanit Sukontasap, vicepresident for group communications at Siam City Cement, a business partner of the project.

Located just a few kilometres from Krabi town, Koh Klang, with fewer than 5,000 people, was recently selected by the Thailand Business Council for Sustainable Development (TBCSD) to be turned into a "carbon capture and storage island", part of moves to turn Thailand into a low-carbon economy.

Through partnerships between business organisations, local communities and the Thailand Environment Institute (TEI), the "Blue Carbon Storage" project involves planting and rehabilitating 3,000 rai of mangrove area or "walking forests" for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Prof Dr Sanit Aksornkoae, a director and acting president of the TEI, said it would take three years to develop the entire programme including six months to measure existing carbon dioxide levels and estimate how much can be reduced on the island.

"Blue carbon storage is similar to green carbon storage, which involves land forests, except higher amounts of CO2 are stored," he said.

Given Thailand's 2,700 km of coastline, some 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) could be stored annually in coastal forests compared with 40 million a year for green or land forests.

For example, seagrass can store 1,130 kilogrammes per rai per year, while seaweed is good for more than 2,000 kg per rai per year.

Thailand's more than 200 varieties of coral reefs can manage 1,800 kg of GHGs per year, with plankton storing about 1,500 kg.

By comparison, Prof Dr Sanit said land forests can generally capture 1,300 kg of GHGs per rai per year.

Thailand's mangrove area has declined from 2.3 million rai to 1.5 million in recent years, with more than 400 sq km eroded.

Most of this forest area stretches along the Gulf of Thailand, on which the country's coastline runs for 1,900 km compared with only 800 km for the Andaman coast.

"Ineffective and improper use of natural resources have resulted in continuous declines in mangrove forest area and aquatic animals," said Qwanruedee Chotichanathawewong, a TBCSD executive director and TEI vice-president.

"The loss of mangrove forest means Thailand is losing lots of carbon storage area, thereby contributing to accelerated climate change."

For an agricultural country such as Thailand, climate change can mean lower crop yields due to higher temperatures, increased drought and reduced biodiversity.

The TEI says Thailand emits 359 million tonnes of GHGs annually, mostly from the energy sector.

Other partners in the project include the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand and Siam City Cement Plc along with Islanda Eco Village Resort, the only participating resort on Koh Klang and which educates local people and tourists alike about the project.

Pimrapee Phanwichatikul, who opened Islanda almost three years ago, said the resort will eventually distribute mangrove seedlings to tourists so they can participate in planting the seedlings on the island.

"We need help from academics and researchers regarding care of the seedlings, while resort staff can coordinate with the villages," said Ms Pimrapee, who is also the vice-president for sales and marketing at the Maritime Park and Spa Resort in the province.

"Koh Klang villagers can earn extra income by planting and taking care of the seedlings."

She said that by limiting tourist numbers, Koh Klang can prevent the garbage problems experienced by other resort islands in the country.

Seagrasses face extinction threat

2011-05-23T08:24:00.000-04:00

Seagrasses, iconic and important blue carbon ecosystem, face extinction -

__________________________________

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/13441738

Seagrasses face extinction threat

By Matt Walker Editor, BBC Nature News, 23 May 2011

A manatee grazes on seagrass (image: Hoslo Jiwa)

Seagrasses around the world are disappearing, with some species now threatened with extinction.

The first global survey of individual seagrass species has found that 14% are at risk of going extinct.

"I was surprised by the level of threat to many species of seagrass”

Frederick Short Research Professor and Director of SeagrassNet

More common species are also in decline, meaning both seagrass habitat and diversity is being lost.

Seagrasses provide food and habitat for a variety of ocean species including manatees, sea turtles and fish such as sea horses.

Seagrasses are flowering plants that grow on the ocean floor.

They form vast meadows that flower and seed underwater, having evolved from land-based plants that entered the water millions of years ago.

Seagrasses alone form important marine habitats.

They act as nurseries for young fish and shellfish, and are the primary food for large marine mammals such as manatees and dugongs, as well as reptiles such as some sea turtles.

They also contribute to the health of coral reefs and mangroves, salt marshes and oyster reefs.

> 26 of the 72 species of seagrass are declining in number, with 13 increasing. The rest are stable or unknown.

> Seagrasses provide food for dugongs and manatees, animals said to be the basis for the mermaid myths.

It has been known for a while that seagrasses are declining in many parts of the world.

The reasons are many, seagrass expert Frederick Short told the BBC.

Professor Short, of the University of Hampshire in Durham, US is the director of SeagrassNet, an international seagrass monitoring program with 114 sites around the world.

For example, seagrasses are gone from the most developed coastlines due to pollution, said Professor Short.

Seagrasses are in decline in the developing world due to sedimentation, caused by runoff from impacted watersheds and deforestation, and being overloaded with nutrients flowing into the sea from sewage and agricultural runoff.

Seagrasses are also being directly damaged by the dredging of seafloors.

Seagrass is home to a Malagasy cowfish Seagrass is home to a Malagasy cowfish

"But there has never been a review of individual species status," said Professor Short.

So he and an international team of experts convened three workshops to gather all the knowledge about individual seagrasses, and used it to evaluate how at risk each species is. The workshops were hosted by Conservation International, the Global Marine Species Assessment programme and SeagrassNet.

The results are published in the journal Biological Conservation.

"I was surprised by the level of threat to many species of seagrass and to discover that seagrass biodiversity is under greater threat than I believed," he said.

Of the 72 species, his team found that 15 seagrasses should be considered Endangered, Vulnerable or Near Threatened, under criteria laid down by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Of those, ten face a significant risk of extinction.

Phyllospadix japonicus is an important habitat-forming grass along the rocky shorelines of China, North and South Korea and Japan. But it has gone from swathes of China's coastline, due to seaweed aquaculture.

Zostera chilensis is known from only two locations on the coast of Chile, and seems to have already disappeared from one.

Of the 57 remaining species, 48 are considered of Least Concern, while sufficient data doesn't exist to make a judgement on the others.

"Many widespread, common seagrass species which are not presently threatened are nonetheless in decline, so we have both an overall loss of habitat and a loss of biodiversity," said Professor Short.

"Seagrasses are both direct food for important species and as they break down within the coastal ecosystem, they are part of a vast food web that provides food to many organisms within the coastal ocean, including many commercially and recreationally important species.

Green turtles swimming over seagrass Green turtles depend on the green grass

"Unfortunately, being submerged in the ocean they are rarely directly seen except by swimmers or snorkelers."

Fish andTransfer of Carbon to the Deep Ocean

2011-05-16T06:07:00.008-04:00

Researchers using sediment traps in the Southern Ocean have included fish fecal material in measurements of carbon flux to the deep ocean. Fish feces was found in three out of four sediment trap deployments. The study focused on the sinking flux of particulate matter (carbon) associated with free-drifting icebergs.

Fish feces included as marine carbon – "fecal material from euphausiids (brown cylindrical shape) and ﬁsh (large reddish pellet)", from Smith et al 2011.

Reference:

Smith, K. L. Jr., et al., Carbon export associated with free drifting icebergs in the Southern Ocean. Deep-Sea Research II (2011), doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2010.11.027

World Atlas of Mangroves: A Book Review

2011-04-15T05:01:00.000-04:00

http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0414-thoumi_mangroves.html

World Atlas of Mangroves: A Book Review

By: Gabriel Thoumi, April 14, 2011

Because recent research has shown that it is often the case that mangroves store more carbon than tropical forests--from 90 tons to 588 tons carbon from above-ground and below-ground biomass combined with net primary productivity of 7 to 25 tons carbon annually (1)--while providing an estimated ecosystem services value of up to US$ 9270 per hectare per year (2), the timely publication of the World Atlas of Mangroves is an excellent reference for those of us working to protect mangroves globally. With information sourced from 1400 literature references, the atlas gives the reader the information they need so as to further understand mangrove ecosystems, and the opportunities to develop mangrove ecosystem conservation and carbon projects.

This easy-to-use atlas includes global and regional maps demonstrating mangrove species richness, location, and conservation strategies, including carbon sequestration quantities for all 73 species of mangroves. These maps also represent visually protected areas overlaid with the existing mangrove estate. Finally, each regional section contains excellent analysis on regional mangrove issues including a measured discussion of the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on villages that had protected their mangroves compared with villages that had not protected their mangroves.

The atlas further provides momentum to protecting our global mangrove estate given the recent announcement that Restore America's Estuaries is developing a mangrove carbon methodology, in conjunction with Verified Carbon Standard. This proposed carbon accounting methodology is focusing on quantifying and crediting the greenhouse gas benefits of several types of wetlands conservation projects including mangroves and coastal and tidal wetlands.

In fact, in a recent report by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and wetland specialists ESA PWA, "Of the 15 coastal deltas studied for the report, seven were found to have released more than 500 million tons of CO2 each since the wetlands were drained, mostly in the past 100 years. By comparison, Mexico's carbon dioxide emissions for 2007 were just over 470 million tonnes." This type of ecosystem loss has led NASA to announce a large grant to study wetlands loss in Bangladesh and for the Government of Guyana to award $100 million Guyanese dollars to Guyana’s Mangrove Restoration Project.

With the global mangrove estate in 123 countries impacting fisheries, biodiversity and species conservation, coastal zone development and protection, and climate change mitigation, it is important that our conservation community work with our business community and indigenous and local communities to develop equitable opportunities for carbon and conservation finance funds to protect our global mangrove estate that we depend on daily. Because the greatest threat to mangroves is arising from conversion and land clearing for aquaculture and agriculture ( food production and palm oil food production and palm oil), and land conversion to urban uses (growth of cities), it is clear that in the 21st century, the destruction of our Earth’s mangroves could potentially complicate global food security while impacting sustainable growth of our urban areas. This furthermore strengthens our needed resolve to today begin to develop carbon projects on mangroves properties so that we can mitigate climate change while developing sustainable coastal zone management policies in the 21st century.

How to order

World Atlas of Mangroves

By Mark Spalding, Mami Kainuma, and Lorna Collins

Hardcover: 319 Pages, $99.95

Publisher: Earthscan Publications

June 2010

(1) Komiyama, A., J.E. Ong & S. Poungparn, 2008. Allometry, biomass and productivity of mangrove forests: a review. Aquatic Botany 89(2): 128-137.

(2) In the front line. Shoreline protection and other ecosystem services from mangroves and coral reefs. UNEP-WCMC Biodiversity Series 24 (Volume 2006) - Wells, S., Ravilious, C., Corcoran, E., UNEP-WCMC

Gabriel Thoumi, Project Developer, Forest Carbon Offsets LLC, provides forest carbon project development and sustainable finance consulting integrating both the carbon and capital markets. He has consulted on 20 forest carbon projects globally applying multiple forest carbon standards and methodologies, and he frequently lectures and publishes on the same topics globally.

New evidence on coastal wetlands as carbon sinks

2011-04-13T08:35:00.001-04:00

New evidence on coastal wetlands as carbon sinks

http://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/new-evidence-coastal-wetlands-carbon-sinks

Submitted by Marea E. Hatziolos on Mon, 04/11/2011 - 09:38

In the corridors of COP 16 in Cancun last December, `blue carbon’ was being discussed in the context of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). The notion that wetlands and near-shore marine habitats constitute significant but largely unaccounted for natural sinks of atmospheric CO2 was just beginning to surface. Since then, there has been a surge in interest in Coastal Carbon Sinks, as evidence begins to mount on their ability to suck up CO2 and store it in their biomass and in deep sub-surface soil layers. A recently published study in Nature GeoScience cites evidence from field measurements that mangroves in Indonesia can actually store carbon at four times the rate of their terrestrial forest counterparts.

In contrast to terrestrial forests, mangroves and other wetlands store most of the carbon below ground, in a rich organic soil layer, which can run several meters deep. When this soil layer is disturbed—as happens when wetlands are drained or converted for other land use—huge amounts of carbon are released into the atmosphere in the form of CO2, and centuries or millennia of accumulated carbon can be emitted over the course of a few decades.

The extent of these emissions in estuaries and deltas, is highlighted in a detailed World Bank technical report. The preliminary findings of the report were summarized for decision-makers in a brief issued last December at the COP 16. The technical report, Mitigating Climate Change through Restoration and Management of Coastal Wetlands and Near-shore Marine Ecosystems: Challenges and Opportunities, is available on line and is being launched today in Indonesia at a Workshop on Tropical Wetland Ecosystems of Indonesia,in Bali.

The report estimates that, within the major deltas and estuaries subject to drainage which were reviewed for this study, many have experienced losses of close to 1 billion tons of CO2 (more than twice the annual emissions of Mexico), since large-scale alterations to their hydrology first began about 100 years ago. Mega emitters include the Mekong delta in Vietnam, the Wash-Humber delta in the UK, the Changjiang delta in China, and the Sacramento – San Joaquin delta in the U.S. While the horse is already out of the barn for these heavily populated and developed coastal scapes, it is not too late to restore portions of these vital carbon stores (see for example, the work of Restore America’s Estuaries), and to prevent other deltas as well as remaining stands of mangrove forests from going down the same path.

But time is running out. As this and other reports warn, coastal wetlands are being lost at an alarming rate—and the pressure is greatest in the tropics. Coastal wetlands are succumbing to urbanization, agriculture, aquaculture, and to impacts from climate change. It is not clear whether mangroves can keep pace with sea level rise, where hardened coastlines block their landward retreat.

This race against time, however, is fueling some good basic science and economic analysis on how to translate the carbon sequestration services of coastal wetlands and nearshore marine environments into revenue streams, creating incentives for local governments and communities to protect them. Geochemists and ecologists are struggling to wrap their heads around the complex physics and chemistry of carbon flux to come up with the metrics required for Monitoring, Verification and Reporting (MRV) of carbon emissions reduction. Economists are already calculating the value of these services on the Voluntary Carbon Market, with potential links to trade under an expanded REDD+ market

In the World Bank, we are beginning to explore alternative livelihood opportunities related to mangrove conservation and rehabilitation linked to REDD+ in coastal communities in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, where mangrove forests are the richest, and most under threat. National programs for community-based coastal resources management are likely to offer the best opportunities for piloting and scaling up such an approach. The next phase of COREMAP (The Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Program in Indonesia), which is expected to focus on capturing value from coastal ecosystem services, may just be the place to start.

Green Payments for Blue Carbon

2011-04-11T05:09:00.002-04:00

It seems that every few weeks we learn more about importance of Blue Carbon ecosystems as carbon sinks.

Two recent publications by the World Bank and Duke University are especially noteworthy to the policy and market spheres of Blue Carbon:

Mitigating Climate Change through Restoration and Management of Coastal Wetlands and Near-shore Marine Ecosystems Challenges and Opportunities (S Crooks, D Herr, J Tamelander, D Laffoley, & J Vandever, March 2011)

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ENVIRONMENT/Resources/MtgtnCCthruMgtofCoastalWetlands.pdf

Green Payments for Blue Carbon: Economic Incentives for Protecting Threatened Coastal Habitats (B C Murray, L Pendleton, WA Jenkins, & S Sifleet, April 2011)

http://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/economics/naturalresources/blue-carbon-report

Important take-home messages from the reports include:

Avoiding carbon emissions from the loss of Blue Carbon ecosystems (avoided loss) could be one of the major values for potential market application.

Sustainable management of Blue Carbon ecosystems also offers a wide range of co-benefits, including shoreline protection, water quality maintenance, the preservation of biodiversity, food security, and economic benefits associated with fisheries and tourism.

Carbon emissions (from ecosystem loss) and sequestration associated with Blue Carbon ecosystems are currently neither accounted for in national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories, nor do incentives for restoration or disincentives to drain or damage these systems exist in international policy frameworks is that amounts of carbon.

Coordinated action/initiatives are recommended in advancing Blue Carbon in the international and national climate change policy processes. Targets include national GHG inventories, expanding UNFCCC reporting requirements, and IPCC guidance and guidelines, with opportunities both in the developed and developing worlds.

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Hats off to the Blue Carbon Portal for beating us to this story, I just had to re-post. -Steven

Blue Carbon Highlighted in the Western Indian Ocean Region

2011-04-08T04:48:00.007-04:00

Blue Carbon was on the agenda at “Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region: Solutions to the Crisis”, a regional climate change conference held in Balaclava, Mauritius, March 21 - 23 2011. The conference was organized by the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA), Mauritius Oceanography Institute (MOI); the Nairobi Convention Secretariat, and Commission de l'océan Indien (COI).

Attendees included experts, stakeholders, and policy makers on climate change impacts, adaptation and mitigation in the region.

A Consensus Statement was released which calls attention to the important impacts and issues surrounding climate change in the region. The importance of Blue Carbon ecosystems in adaptation and mitigation was highlighted, relevant excerpted text follows:

We, senior experts from the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region,…

Aware of the positive contributions that oceans and coastal areas play in the mitigation of global warming through the environmental services they provide including their role as natural carbon sinks and in regulating climate and temperature;

We, the participants hereby recommend the following:

I. Adaptation

1. Recognition that for the WIO region adaptation remains the top priority for tackling the impacts of climate change and variability, we therefore call for the WIO countries and their partners to prioritize the following interventions:-

(e) Encourage the use of natural carbon sinks in coastal areas such as mangroves, sea grass beds, and coastal wetlands by including these ecosystems in the emission and climate mitigation protocols;

II. Mitigation

2. We encourage WIO countries to take the opportunities provided by climate change to initiate policies that address poverty reduction and mitigation actions and in this regard, the countries should prioritize the following interventions:

f) Rehabilitate critical coastal habitats and their components including coastal forest and seagrass habitats;

g) Enhance the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through forests by developing and implementing national and regional blue Carbon and REDD–plus programs and strategies with a trans-boundary focus as appropriate.

The full statement can be found at (recommended reading):

http://www.wiomsa.net/images/stories/Climate%20Change%20Conference_Final%20Statement.pdf

A link to the conference web site, which includes lots of interesting material and PPT presentations:

http://www.wiomsa.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=360:conference-on-climate-change-impacts-adaptation-and-mitigation-in-the-wio&catid=38:events&Itemid=394

And a related news article (translated from French with Google Translate):

Climate Change: A common strategy adopted by the countries of the western Indian Ocean

http://www.lexpress.mu/story/22529-changement-climatique-une-strategie-commune-adoptee-par-les-pays-de-l-ouest-de-l-ocean-indien.html

Béatrice Hope, 03/26/11

Mauritius hosted this week, many experts who study climate change at a regional conference on the subject. The participants developed a common strategy, based on best practices and recommendations made during the conference.

The regional conference on climate change adaptation in the countries of the western Indian Ocean, which took place this week at the Intercontinental Hotel at Balaclava, has a stimulating discussion on the issue. The objective of this conference is to provide countries of the western Indian Ocean and strategically useful and accurate information that would help them in adapting to climate change.

The participants shared their knowledge, experience and solutions to coping strategies and possible mitigation. At the end of the conference, they have developed a regional strategy on this.

The recommendations relate to two strategies: adaptation and mitigation of climate change and its effects. The integration of disaster reduction and risk management programs in national and regional development and strengthening of economic and social resistance are recommended for adaptation. It was also concluded that the need to conduct awareness campaigns is important and urgent to prepare the authorities but also the population, especially in coastal areas. It is also necessary that adequate funding, perhaps through a Coastal Adaptation Fund be allocated to support coastal communities - because they are most vulnerable to climate change.

Regarding mitigation, the recommendations are in short, less polluting means of transport, development of clean and renewable energy, sustainable practices in agriculture, building more eco-friendly and reduce greenhouse gas emissions emissions.

To recap, at the opening of the conference, Monday, March 21 Minister of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Deva Virahsawmy, recalled how the Indian Ocean region is prone to risks due to climate change. "The western Indian Ocean is most affected by climate change, although this region contributes the least to greenhouse gas emissions ... The increasing pressures posed by the demographic and boost the impacts of climate change seriously jeopardize the marine ecosystem and coastal region. Climate change may jeopardize the economic gains gained by the countries of the western Indian Ocean," he said.

The Department of Environment and Sustainable Development has, therefore, created a unit dedicated to the fight against climate change. And the government has launched the Maurice Ile Durable.

The conference was organized by the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA) with the collaboration of the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) and the Mauritius Oceanography Institute (MOI). It brought together about 200 participants. They come from Mauritius, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Kenya, Canada, Nigeria and France. They come from regional institutions, NGOs, business communities, governments and other development partners, they are professionals in the field of climate change.

Mangroves go trade-able

2011-04-04T06:40:00.005-04:00

Mangroves go trade-able: New CDM methodology for afforestation and reforestation of tidal forests

Written (for Blue Carbon Blog) by: Zbigniew J. Grabowski, Director of Community and Ecology, http://www.pureinteractions.com

A project put together by the Danone Fund for Nature, the IUCN, the Ramsar Convention and Oceanium, a Senegalese NGO is the first of its kind to submit for accreditation under the Clean Development Mechanism. The project design document and monitoring methodology are open for comment until February 22, 2011. The project aims to deliver significant conservation and sustainable development co-benefits by restoring mangrove habitats providing habitat for economically important biodiversity and improving the local and regional environment.

The project focuses on reforestation of areas identified to be suitable by a variety of mangrove species. The proposed methodology (coded as ARNM0038) combines a number of pre-existing CDM methods for afforestation and reforestation (A/R) of degraded land (AR-ACM001, AR-ACM0002), land under agricultural use (AR-AM004), shrub supported A/R on degraded land (AR-AM0006), and includes the simplified baseline and monitoring methodology for small scale CDM A/R project activities implemented on wetlands (AR-AMS0003).

Included in the methodology are carbon pools of above and below ground biomass, dead wood, litter and soil organic carbon.

If approved, similar mangrove restoration projects would be able to produce Certified Emissions Reductions (CER) carbon credits which can be used by Kyoto signatories to meet their emissions reduction targets. CERs are currently traded by Annex 1 countries, and a 2% levy on CERs issued by the CDM fund the UNFCCC Adaptation Fund.

View the draft Project Design Document (PDD) here.
https://cdm.unfccc.int/UserManagement/FileStorage/2OG4ZAT0X7CFSP1N95HKDUQ83J6MRI

View the draft methodology here.
https://cdm.unfccc.int/UserManagement/FileStorage/HF4G5IKCPRD67ZANMTL3XYEB1OQ2UV

Comments can be submitted online at:
https://cdm.unfccc.int/methodologies/ARmethodologies/pnm/byref/ARNM0038

See the news blurb from Ecosystem Marketplace in their 17th of February news bulletin here:
http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/dynamic/article.page.php?page_id=8030&section=home

Information on CDM and JI markets from Ecosystem Marketplace here:
http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/dynamic/web.page.php?section=carbon_market&page_name=kyoto_market

__________________________

In follow-up, see the following:

The Danone Fund for Nature (at the Ramsar Convention Convention on Wetlands web page):
http://www.ramsar.org/cda/en/ramsar-activities-private-danone-danone-fund-for-23925/main/ramsar/1-63-98-398%5E23925_4000_0__

Achieving Carbon Offsets through Mangroves and Other Wetlands, Meeting Report, Expert Workshop, November 2009, 92 pp:
http://www.ramsar.org/pdf/DFN_report_Final.pdf

The Wetland Carbon Partnership (IUCN, Ramsar and Danone)
http://wetcarbon.earthmind.net/

Carbon-rich mangroves ripe for conservation

2011-04-03T08:30:00.001-04:00

Carbon-rich mangroves ripe for conservation

Failing to preserve mangrove forests could cause sizeable carbon emissions

Janelle Weaver / Published online 3 April 2011 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2011.205

Until now, the amount of carbon locked up in mangrove forests was largely unknown (Dan Donato).

Mangrove forests in tropical regions of the Indian and Pacific Oceans store more carbon than previously recognized, according to a study published today in Nature Geoscience1. The findings indicate that much of the carbon in such forests is found in the surrounding soil, which is rich in organic material. Cutting down mangrove forests, which occupy less than 1% of tropical forest area, could therefore contribute up to 10% of global carbon emissions from deforestation.

Although carbon reserves in other types of tropical wetland forest have been assessed, the amount of carbon in mangroves has been largely ignored, even though they are present in more than 100 countries. For example, it is estimated that clearing of tropical peatlands, which also contain carbon-rich soils, produces about a quarter of all deforestation emissions. The extent of mangrove forests has declined by as much as 50% over the past half century because of development, over-harvesting and aquaculture, so estimating their carbon reserves will be important for future strategies to reduce climate change.

To estimate the abundance of carbon in mangroves, lead investigator J. Boone Kauffman, an ecologist at the Northern Research Station of the US Forest Service in Durham, New Hampshire, and his team sampled 25 mangrove sites across a broad territory that included Micronesia, Indonesia and Bangladesh. This area spans 30 degrees of latitude and 73 degrees of longitude and represents about 40% of the global area covered by these trees.

Sludge stores

Kauffman and his team assessed above-ground and below-ground carbon pools in mangrove sites occupying estuaries and oceanic settings, such as island coasts. They found that these forests hold much more carbon than do boreal, temperate or tropical upland forests — especially in an organic-rich 'muck layer' of soil more than 30 centimetres below the surface.

The team found that this underground layer is thicker in mangrove forests in estuaries than in those near the ocean, accounting for more than 70% of total carbon stores in estuarine mangroves and upwards of 50% in those in oceanic zones.

By combining their findings with global data, the researchers predict that worldwide carbon reserves in mangrove forests may be as high as 25% of those in tropical peatlands, and at the current rate of annual clearance, emissions from mangrove destruction could reach 40% of those from the clearing of peatlands.

Branching out

"This paper represents an important step forward in quantifying and understanding the significant pool of carbon in mangrove ecosystems," says Shimon Anisfeld, an expert in coastal ecology at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

However, the numbers still only represent rough estimates, owing to a lack of information about geographic variation in soil depth, the relative area of mangrove forests in estuaries compared with those near oceans, and the effect of land-use changes on carbon release from soils. They may even be overestimates, because "the authors seem to have sampled some of the largest, most robust stands around," says Thomas Smith, an ecologist at the US Geological Survey in St Petersburg, Florida.

Still, the study could have a substantial impact on conservation efforts around the world, says Gail Chmura, an expert in coastal ecosystems at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. "Hopefully, it will help arguments to extend REDD+ to mangroves," she says, referring to an international plan to pay developing countries to preserve forests in a bid to help reduce global carbon emissions.

Robert Jackson, an ecologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, agrees with Chmura, adding: "Mangrove forests are important for diversity, for coastal stability and for carbon, based on this paper. It gives another justification for preserving mangrove forests."

References

1. Donato, D. C. et al. Nature Geoscience advance online publication doi:10.1038/ngeo1123 (2011).

Mangroves: Save the ‘carbon sinks’ instead of letting them go down the drain, say experts

2011-04-02T07:22:00.000-04:00

Mangroves: Save the ‘carbon sinks’ instead of letting them go down the drain, say experts

http://tribune.com.pk/story/140055/mangroves-save-the-carbon-sinks-instead-of-letting-them-go-down-the-drain-say-experts/

By Samia Saleem, Published: March 31, 2011

Schematic diagram of the rooting systems of the two major types of mangrove. IMAGE: ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

KARACHI: Mangroves can serve as lungs for Karachi, where the scope of forestry is already very limited, said experts.

Around the world, environmentalists are now focusing on the role of mangroves as carbon sinks besides their ecological usefulness, natural beauty, ability to filter pollution, house fish nurseries and buffer shorelines against storms.

International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) climate change expert Saadullah Ayaz said that studies have shown that about one acre of mangrove plantations roughly capture 0.7 tons of carbon dioxide every year. Mangroves can thus be used as tools to control the environment and the population. Also, unlike terrestrial vegetation, they don’t cover very large areas, he said.

Studies show that mangroves, salt marshes and sea grasses soak up to five times more carbon than tropical forests. An article published this month in the ‘American Scientific’ calls mangroves as ‘blue carbon’. These previously undervalued coastal carbon sinks are beginning to gain attention from conservation communities because of their littoral environment that is close to the shore, said the article.

Ayaz said that although climate change is a global phenomenon in which Pakistan has a much smaller contribution in comparison, mangroves can still hold enormous amounts of carbon dioxide emissions from factories in the city. Pakistan’s contribution to global climate change is about 0.4 to 0.8 per cent of global emissions versus the largest contributor, the United States, which releases 24 to 27 per cent of the total emissions, according to a task force report on climate change 2010 by the Planning Commission of Pakistan.

In an industrial city, such as Karachi, where both combustion and breathing — the two major contributors to carbon dioxide emissions — are in high density and the scope of forestry and plantations is low, these plants can serve as mitigating agents of pollution, said Ayaz.

IUCN expert on mangroves Tahir Qureshi said that the vast coastal jungles of mangroves on our coastline in Sindh and Balochistan can also be used to improve the forest wealth of Pakistan. According to him, Pakistan is already on the list of the countries that don’t have enough forests and wildlife. “These coastal plants not only contribute to marine diversity and ecosystems but also attract land biodiversity,” he said. Just like trees on land, mangrove forests can help rejuvinate the ecosystem, catalysing the ecological balance and increasing the flora and fauna.

“These spindly shrubs that thrive on the interface between land and sea, attract birds, animals and insects, their wood can be used for timber, the leaves for animal fodder, and they can hold soil, preventing soil erosion,” he said.

According to the Pakistan climate change report, the forest cover for Pakistan is expected to increase from 4.9 per cent of the total land area in 2005 to 5.2 per cent in 2010 and six per cent by 2015.

Since mangroves hold so much carbon, destroying mangroves also releases substantial amounts of carbon dioxide gas, which is why protecting the coastal habitat of mangroves is all the more important. “Our resources are being wrecked through aquaculture, agriculture, timber extraction and real estate development,” said Qureshi.

Mangrove forests that spanned over 600,000 hectares till 1950 have shrunk to 86,000 hectares now, which is a major concern, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31st, 2011.

World Bank, GEF Project Supports Mangrove Planting in Kiribati

2011-03-30T06:42:00.001-04:00

World Bank, GEF Project Supports Mangrove Planting in Kiribati

http://biodiversity-l.iisd.org/news/world-bank-gef-project-supports-mangrove-planting-in-kiribati/?referrer=biodiversity-update

29 March 2011: Over 37,000 mangrove seedlings have recently been planted on the islands of Aranuka, Butaritari, Maiana, Makin and in North and South Tarawa, Kiribati, as part of a project supported by the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), AusAID and the New Zealand Aid Programme with the aim of reducing Kiribati’s vulnerability to climate change, climate variability and sea level rise.Mangroves, although considered a ‘soft’ option when compared to seawalls, can be one of the most effective forms of coastal protection that also provide a range of other benefits. Mangroves provide ecosystems to other marine species and also act as buffers to storm surges and sea sprays. Aware of the importance of healthy coastal ecosystems, the Government of Kiribati has been promoting mangrove planting in support of national aims outlined in the 2008-2011 Kiribati Development Plan (KDP) and the 2006-2010 Kiribati National Biodiversity Strategy Action Plan (NBSAP). To raise awareness on the importance of mangroves in Kiribati, the President of Kiribati recently planted mangroves alongside local youths in South Tarawa.

Scientists Offer Warning and Plan For Protecting Earth's 'Blue Carbon'

2011-03-25T08:23:00.000-04:00

Scientists Offer Warning and Plan For Protecting Earth's 'Blue Carbon'

March 24, 2011

Urgent Action Needed To Halt Increasing Carbon Emissions from Destroyed, Degraded Coastal Marine Ecosystems

Arlington, VA / Gland, Switzerland / Paris, France — The destruction of coastal carbon ecosystems, such as mangroves, seagrasses and tidal marshes, is leading to rapid and long-lasting emissions of CO2 into the ocean and atmosphere, according to 32 of the world's leading marine scientists.

That key conclusion highlights a series of warnings and recommendations developed by the new International Working Group on Coastal "Blue" Carbon, which convened its first meeting in Paris last month. The Working Group was created as an initial step in advancing the scientific, management and policy goals of the Blue Carbon Initiative, whose founding members include Conservation International (CI), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO.

Much of the carbon emitted when mangroves, seagrasses or tidal marshes are destroyed is estimated to be thousands of years old because the CO2 stored in these ecosystems is found not only in the plants, but in layer upon layer of soil underneath. Total carbon deposits per square kilometer in these coastal systems may be up to five times the carbon stored in tropical forests, due to their ability to absorb, or sequester, carbon at rates up to 50 times those of the same area of tropical forest. The management of coastal ecosystems can supplement efforts to reduce emissions from tropical forest degradation.

According to recommendations from scientists in the Blue Carbon Working Group, whose collaboration pools expertise from 11 countries on five different continents, the existing knowledge of carbon stocks and emissions from degraded or converted coastal ecosystems is "sufficient to warrant enhanced management actions now."

Dr. Emily Pidgeon, Marine Climate Change Director at Conservation International, and a leading blue carbon conservation scientist emphasized, "We have known for some time the importance of coastal ecosystems for fisheries and for coastal protection from storms and tsunamis. We are now learning that, if destroyed or degraded, these coastal ecosystems become major emitters of CO2 for years after the plants are removed. In the simplest terms, it's like a long slow bleed that is difficult to clot. So we need to urgently halt the loss of these high carbon ecosystems, to slow the progression of climate change."

Draining a typical coastal wetland, such as a mangrove or marsh, releases 0.25 million tons of carbon dioxide per square kilometer for every meter of soil that's lost. Global data shows that seagrasses, tidal marshes, and mangroves are being degraded or destroyed along the world's coastlines at a rapid pace. In fact, between 1980 and 2005, 35,000 square kilometers of mangroves were removed globally – an area the size of the nation of Belgium. This degraded area still continues to release up to 0.175 gigatons of carbon dioxide each year — equivalent to the annual emissions of countries such as the Netherlands or Venezuela.

IOC Assistant Director-General and Executive Secretary Wendy Watson-Wright added, "Scientific studies have shown that although mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes account for less than 1 percent of the total plant biomass on land and forests, they cycle almost the same amount of carbon as the remaining 99 percent. So the decline of these carbon-efficient ecosystems is a valid cause of concern."

Over the course of three days in Paris, scientists concluded the meeting with a set of key priorities and recommendations:

* Enhanced national and international research efforts: such as developing inventory and accounting methodologies for coastal carbon; conducting carbon inventories, conducting targeted research and monitoring to more accurately quantity the greenhouse gas emissions from coastal ecosystem loss, and establishing a network of field demonstrations to build capacity and community input.

* Enhanced local and regional management practices: such as identifying and reducing the primary drivers of high-carbon coastal system degradation, (urban development, agriculture, aquaculture, pollutant and nutrient run-off, dredging, and introduction of artificial constructions), strengthening national to local conservation and protection measures of high-carbon coastal systems, and beginning restoration of lost/degraded systems

* Enhanced international recognition of coastal carbon ecosystems: through established international bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Scientists emphasized that improved management of coastal marine ecosystems is not meant to become a patent roadblock to nations' economic development or food production, but rather, a targeted strategy that prioritizes conservation of specific, unique, high-carbon coastal zones, which act like global sponges for global CO2. They are recommending that nations and managers better recognize the vital services that these wetlands provide humanity, and prioritize their protection.

"The capacity of coastal wetlands to reduce climate change by capturing and storing carbon dioxide is considerable, but has been overlooked" says Jerker Tamelander, Oceans and Climate Change Manager for IUCN. "If valued and managed properly, coastal ecosystems can help many countries meet their mitigation targets, while supporting adaptation in vulnerable coastal areas."

The working group will meet next in August, and continue their collaborative scientific study. Funding for the group has been provided by the Waterloo Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

To view the scientists full recommendations, visit:

http://www.marineclimatechange.com/marineclimatechange/bluecarbon_recommendations.html

Images available for download and use by media with proper credit:

http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/16118332_SGt9F

Conserving coastal ecosystems to combat climate change

2011-03-19T07:45:00.003-04:00

Conserving coastal ecosystems to combat climate change

http://climatide.wgbh.org/2011/03/conserving-coastal-ecosystems-to-combat-climate-change/

March 15, 2011 | 12:08 PM | By Heather Goldstone

Salt marshes, sea grass beds, and coastal mangrove forests can sequester five times as much carbon as tropical forests (flickr/slack12).

You’ve probably never heard of “blue carbon.” Don’t feel bad. You’re not alone. But it’s worth getting acquainted with.

Basically, it’s the idea that ocean and coastal ecosystems can absorb and trap carbon dioxide that contributes to climate change. In fact, over at SciAm, Robynne Boyd explains that mangrove forests, salt marshes, and sea grasses can hold five times more carbon than tropical forests that typically get more attention.

Because they hold so much carbon, destroying them can release substantial amounts of CO2. People around the world wreck coastal habitats through aquaculture, agriculture, timber extraction and real estate development. To date, human encroachment has destroyed more than 35 percent of mangroves, 30 percent of sea grass meadows and 20 percent of salt marshes.

Stopping such destruction could therefore become an important element in confronting climate change. “Blue carbon is a source of emissions that hasn’t been addressed by the climate community and therefore creates an opportunity to reduce emissions,” says Roger Ullman, executive director of the Linden Trust for Conservation in New York City, which promotes the use of conservation finance and environmental markets. “These fabulous ecosystems…don’t cover a very large expanse of territory, yet still provide enormously important services to humanity and are being destroyed three or four times faster than the rate of tropical forests.”

If Boyd’s introduction to the science and policy of blue carbon piques your interest, check out Steven Lutz’s Blue Carbon Blog – a great source of news on the topic.

_________________________________

Thanks for the plug Heather! - Steven

Blue Carbon: An Oceanic Opportunity to Fight Climate Change

2011-03-11T07:12:00.002-05:00

MIGHTY MANGROVE: Mangroves, salt marshes and sea grasses soak up five times more carbon than tropical forests Image: ©iStockphoto.com / Sara Winter

Blue Carbon: An Oceanic Opportunity to Fight Climate Change

Mangroves, salt marshes and sea grasses soak up to five times more carbon than tropical forests, making their conservation critical

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=blue-carbon

By Robynne Boyd | March 10, 2011

Mangroves are tangled orchards of spindly shrubs that thrive in the interface between land and sea. They bloom in muddy soil where the water is briny and shallow, and the air muggy. Salt marshes and sea grasses also flourish in these brackish hinterlands. Worldwide, these coastal habitats are recognized for their natural beauty and ability to filter pollution, house fish nurseries and buffer shorelines against storms.

Less known is their ability to sequester vast amounts of carbon—up to five times that stored in tropical forests. Dubbed "blue carbon" because of their littoral environment, these previously undervalued coastal carbon sinks are beginning to gain attention from the climate and conservation communities.

Because they hold so much carbon, destroying them can release substantial amounts of CO2. People around the world wreck coastal habitats through aquaculture, agriculture, timber extraction and real estate development. To date, human encroachment has destroyed more than 35 percent of mangroves, 30 percent of sea grass meadows and 20 percent of salt marshes.

Stopping such destruction could therefore become an important element in confronting climate change. "Blue carbon is a source of emissions that hasn't been addressed by the climate community and therefore creates an opportunity to reduce emissions," says Roger Ullman, executive director of the Linden Trust for Conservation in New York City, which promotes the use of conservation finance and environmental markets. "These fabulous ecosystems…don't cover a very large expanse of territory, yet still provide enormously important services to humanity and are being destroyed three or four times faster than the rate of tropical forests."

Emissions from wetlands destruction

Case in point is California's Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, explains Dan Laffoley, marine vice chairman of the World Commission on Protected Areas at the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Over the last 100 years, 1,800 square kilometers of wetlands were drained, emitting two gigatons of CO2 that had been accruing in the plants and soils for thousands of years. Between 10 million and 15 million tons of CO2 continues to be released from the Sacramento Delta each year, an amount equivalent to around 3 percent of California's total greenhouse gas emissions.

At the global scale, coastal wetland destruction could account for 1 to 3 percent of industrial emissions; a number that will increase along with coastal wetland destruction. "In 2011 we have a reason why mud is important," Laffoley says.

Even so, almost all coastal and marine system research and exploration is about a decade behind its terrestrial counterpart. People have focused on understanding the surrounding lands, rather than the unseen animals, plants and processes below the ocean's surface, explains Emily Pidgeon, director of the Marine Climate Change Program for Conservation International. The ocean is more dynamic and its systems generally more complicated to access and understand than land-based ecosystems, such as forests.

Take remote sensing, for example. Most approaches, including satellite-based systems, cannot see underwater. So whereas these methods very effectively provide data that enable scientists to estimate the amount of carbon in forests, they cannot get the equivalent information on the carbon load of sea grasses or other submerged marine ecosystems, especially in sediment where most of the CO2 in blue carbon systems is stored. Instead, scientists are required to go to sites and dig up meters of the sediment to measure how much carbon it holds—a thankless task, to be sure.

"Mangroves are as unsexy as you get, since you ride a boat through them and get covered in mosquitoes," Pidgeon says.

Green cash for blue carbon

Getting local communities to save their mangroves will depend on economics. Land managers, farmers and other developers often opt to control these watery landscapes, thereby transforming them into income-generating acreage, such as a shrimp farm or rice paddy. The carbon markets, with their carbon credits selling between $15 to $20 per ton, could offer an alternative. The fees would encourage land conservation, which would prevent the release of carbon into the atmosphere, and the markets would reward them for mitigating climate change.

Whereas many of these programs are at least three to five years in the future, the preliminary economics looks like it could work, especially in certain cases to preserve these fragile ecosystems, such as avoiding the conversion of mangroves to shrimp farms in the Indo-Pacific region.

Still, the main hope for conserving these coastal habitats lies in a combination of economics and science. The first step is recognizing the importance of coastal carbon pools as a significant tool for climate mitigation, says Stephen Crooks, a wetlands expert who is climate change program manager of ESA PWA, a San Francisco–based environmental consulting and engineering firm.

Even without carbon markets nations have obligations to manage their greenhouse gas emissions, which means that the carbon in these coastal habitats can be tallied in national accounts as a way of contributing to their management of global greenhouse emissions. This would be especially helpful in the Coral Triangle (an oceanic area between Southeast Asia and northern Australia that encompasses Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands) as well as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China, where coastal habitats are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Companies could also start volunteering to launch socially and environmentally friendly coastal habitat projects in the name of climate protection.

The final prong would be the creation of international carbon markets. As Crooks puts it: "One day the biggest bang for your buck may come from conservation."

Blue Carbon Discussed

2011-01-26T10:40:00.005-05:00

A Blue Carbon session was held at the National Council for Science and the Environment's “Our Changing Oceans” meeting last week in Washing D.C. (Jan. 19-21).

The session focused on our current range of potential approaches to sequester carbon in the oceans, i.e. the blue carbon approach and ocean fertilization. Issues discussed included the need for comprehensive research (including the role of science funding agencies), what a potential blue carbon market would look like, governance issues in the coasts and open oceans, readily available policy opportunities, and how to tackle greater policy targets.

The blue carbon panelists included Steven Lutz (myself), Director of Blue Climate Solutions, Linwood Pendleton, Director of Ocean and Coastal Policy, Nicholas Institute, and Steve Crooks, Climate Change Director, ESA PWA.

Ocean fertilization panelists included Ken Buesseler (co-chair), Senior Scientist, Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Dept. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Fei Chai, Professor of Oceanography School of Marine Sciences and Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, and Chris Vivian, Cefas, UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

A list of recommendations was requested from the conference organizers, here is what we came up with:

Task 1. Recognize the importance of coastal and ocean carbon sequestration in climate change discussions (e.g. Governments, IPCC, COP)

Task 2. Regarding coastal and ocean carbon sequestration policy and research, we need to identify cabinet level leadership (e.g. establish an SOST working group, include in White House CEQ guidelines, and include in National Ocean Policy)

Task 3. To encourage coordinated US federal research and policy regarding coastal and ocean carbon sequestration, we need to identify who’s in charge at the agency level and their roles (e.g., DOE, DOI, NSF, NASA, NOAA, USGS, EPA etc.)

Task 4. Fund and develop comprehensive ocean carbon science programs that examine the fate of carbon from watersheds to the open ocean.

Task 5. While we recognize the need for research on coastal and ocean carbon sequestration we should take immediate action to conserve ecosystems that are already known to sequester carbon.

Blue Carbon at the Executive Level - on Friday, one of the questions posed by a member of the audience to Dr. John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, asked about views on ocean fertilization. The question was framed in a context with blue carbon.

Dr. Holdren’s answer drew clear distinction between blue carbon and ocean fertilization. He included mention of seagrasses and mangroves (as potential natural carbon sinks) and referred to ocean fertilization as “fiddling with the oceans.” The video of his comments should be available on the Our Changing Oceans web site later this week.

BCS flyer for the Our Changing Oceans meeting.

For the Our Changing Oceans on the web see:

http://communities.earthportal.org/ncseoceans2011/

For the Breakout Session, Blue Carbon: Carbon Sequestration in the Marine Environment, including many blue carbon references (click on articles), see:

http://communities.earthportal.org/ncseoceans2011/topics/view/55870/

Carbon Sequestration as a Marine Ecosystem Service

2011-01-25T14:48:00.004-05:00

Very neat conceptual diagram illustrating marine ecosystem services. Seagrass and mangrove carbon sequestration included.

The image was included in a recent policy brief issued by Conservation International - People and Oceans, managing marine areas for human well being (CI, 2011, 19 pp), and is available at:

http://www.science2action.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=139

Bottom Trawling and Blue Carbon

2011-01-25T14:09:00.010-05:00

Just last month the fisheries minister of Belize announced that all forms of trawling will be banned in Belize effective December 31, 2010.

Oceana worked with the government in facilitating the buyout of the existing two trawlers owned and operated by the Northern Fishermen Cooperative Association (NFC). Additional pressure came from UNESCO, which threatened to take the Belize Barrier Reef System off its World Heritage Site list.

My though on this - if the dragging of the nets by the two NFC boats was damaging the seagrass meadows, and thereby impacting the carbon sequestration function of this ecosystem, then...

Could the buyout of bottom trawlers be funded by a blue carbon market or fund?

_______________________________

U.S. ecosystem carbon storage methodology (including coastal waters)

2011-01-25T12:44:00.001-05:00

Interest from DOI and USGS in the carbon storage carbon function of U.S. ecosystems, including "wetlands," "estuaries," and "coastal waters."

Full report available at:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2010/5233/pdf/sir2010-5233.pdf

___________________________________________

New method measures carbon storage potential and reduces greenhouse gas

http://westernfarmpress.com/management/new-method-measures-carbon-storage-potential-and-reduces-greenhouse-gas

Dec. 17, 2010

A new methodology to assess the potential to store carbon in U.S. wetlands, forests and rangelands ecosystems — and thus to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere — will help find ways to mitigate the impacts of climate change, the Department of the Interior announced.

“This new research by scientists from Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey is a cutting-edge development that will inform land management policies and planning for the long-term storage of carbon to help lessen the impacts of climate change,” Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes said. “This innovative initiative, which Congress called on Interior to undertake in 2007 energy legislation and which Secretary Salazar outlined at the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, will improve the nation's understanding of amounts, sources, and transport of carbon at scales suitable for use by land managers and decision makers.”

National assessment

“Using this methodology, the USGS will now be able to conduct a national assessment to determine how much carbon is being stored in ecosystems and to estimate the capability to use natural systems – such as wetlands, forests and rangelands – to absorb greenhouse gases. The assessment will be conducted on a regional basis,” said USGS scientist Zhiliang Zhu.

The process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in vegetation, soils and aquatic environments is known as biological carbon sequestration. The movement of greenhouse gases in ecosystems results from natural ecosystem processes and human activities. This assessment accounts for three gases, which are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O).

As part of the national assessment, USGS scientists are evaluating major processes that affect carbon sequestration capability and greenhouse gas emissions. Those processes include climate change, changes in land use and land cover, changes in land management activities, and ecosystem disturbances such as wildfires.

This methodology incorporates public comments that were solicited on a draft methodology published in July 2010. It also builds upon the USGS rapid assessment report published in December 2009 to estimate the carbon storage potential in the nation’s forests and soils. The new methodology focuses on all of the nation’s ecosystems and incorporates data and methods (including land use and biogeochemical models and aquatic models) that were updated since the rapid assessment was published. This methodology also incorporates suggestions from an interagency science panel, an extensive peer-review process and comments from other federal agencies.

In addition, the USGS is conducting research on a number of other fronts related to carbon sequestration. These efforts include evaluating the potential for storing carbon dioxide in geologic formations below Earth’s surface, potential release of greenhouse gases from Arctic soils and permafrost, and mapping the distribution of rocks suitable for potential mineral sequestration efforts.

The methodology was developed in accordance with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which directed the Department of the Interior to develop the methodology and conduct the national assessment. This research also benefited from discussions with a variety of organizations and stakeholders, such as the Department of Agriculture (particularly the U.S. Forest Service) and Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the science community.

For more information about this assessment methodology, visit

http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2010/5233/