Marine conservation introduced as a climate solution

Q: How was marine conservation was introduced as a climate solution?

A: Through a series of meetings I organized in Washington, DC, between April 9 and 16, 2008, with Greenpeace USA, Conservation International, The Ocean Foundation, White House CEQ, Heinz Center, and the World Bank.

References:

Lutz, M. 2008a. Overfishing has reduced ocean CO2 sequestration. Powerpoint presentation to Greenpeace USA. April 2008. Greenpeace USA, Washington D.C.
Lutz, M. 2008b. Overfishing has reduced ocean CO2 sequestration. Powerpoint presentation to Conservation International. April 2008. Conservation International, Arlington, Virginia.
Lutz, M. 2008c. Overfishing has reduced ocean CO2 sequestration. Powerpoint presentation to The Ocean Foundation. April 2008. The Ocean Foundation, Washington D.C.
Lutz, M. 2008d. Overfishing has reduced ocean CO2 sequestration. Powerpoint presentation to White House Council on Environmental Quality CEQ. April 2008. The White House, Washington D.C.
Lutz, M. 2008e. Overfishing has reduced ocean CO2 sequestration. Powerpoint presentation to Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. April 2008. Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. Washington D.C.
Lutz, M. 2008f. Overfishing has reduced ocean CO2 sequestration. Powerpoint presentation to World Bank Global Program on Fisheries (PROFISH) Steering Committee. April 2008. The World Bank, Washington D.C.
Lutz, M. 2008g. Overfishing has reduced ocean CO2 sequestration. [Pamphlet]. Author’s personal collection (Lutz S), Arendal, Norway. 1 pp.

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Reforesting mangroves + mitigating global warming

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view/20080305-122814/Reforesting-mangroves--mitigating-global-warming

By Yolanda Sotelo-Fuertes
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:22:00 03/05/2008

BOLINAO, Pangasinan – They only wanted to stop the destruction and degradation of marine resources – their main source of livelihood – in Bolinao, Pangasinan, but in their own little way, they are helping mitigate the serious problem of global warming.

Members of Kaisaka (Kaisahan ng mga Samahan Alay sa Kalikasan or Union of Organizations for the Environment), a federation of 10 village-based fishermen’s groups, have replanted 74 hectares of mangroves, established eight marine sanctuaries with a total area of 90 hectares, and helped implement livelihood projects and formulate the town’s coastal development plan.

“There was a rapid reduction in our income because the fish were fast disappearing. Illegal fishing was rampant and the corals were mostly dead,” Jesem Gabatin, Kaisaka board chair, said. “Old residents had told us that our town used to have thick mangrove forests, but these were depleted because the areas were turned into fishponds. The mangroves were cut and used as housing materials or firewood.”

Gabatin, one of the organizing pioneers, said all he knew then was that he wanted to help stop the environmental degradation. “It was only later that we found that we were helping abate global warming.”

Vested interest

Nileema Noble, resident representative of the United Nations Development Program in the Philippines, assured the fishermen that nothing was wrong with starting projects laden with “vested interests.”

“As human beings, we do things with our vested interest first,” Noble said when she visited Bolinao to monitor projects of the Sagip Lingayen Gulf Project (SLGP) of the Marine Environment Resources Foundation Inc.

In the island town of Anda, Mayor Nestor Pulido said people who had reforested the mangrove areas several years ago were already reaping the fruits of their labor.

When a storm surge hit the town in November last year, houses in the coastal villages were spared because of the presence of mangroves. People have also learned that mangrove areas are nurseries for fish.

Noble said she was “impressed” by the projects of the fishermen, whom she described as “not scientists but people with a lot of common sense.” She called on local officials to consider global warming in all their development projects.

Mangroves absorb carbon dioxide sent into the atmosphere by industries and other human activities. “Through photosynthesis, mangroves absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it in all their parts, just like any terrestrial (land) plants. But unlike terrestrial plants, mangroves store carbon in the sediments as well. Less Carbon means low global warming,” said Severino Salmo, a mangrove researcher pursuing a doctoral degree in marine science at the University of Queensland in Australia.

A hectare of mangrove forest can absorb around 20 tons of carbon each year, Salmo said.

But Noble said the fishermen’s efforts were not enough to counter global warming. “It is a problem that should be addressed on international, provincial, community, individual levels. All of us [should] contribute in reducing global warming,” she said.

Early days

Cesar Junsan, president of Kaisaka, said it was in 1995 when the Marine Environment Resources Foundation (MERF) and the local government started the community-based coastal resources management (CBCRM).

Seeds for marine development projects were sown, including the formation of five grassroots organizations and the establishment of a mangrove reforestation site in Barangay Pilar and a protected area in Balingasay.

In 1997, the CBCRM project was stopped. “We coordinated with the local government to survive. When we had meetings, we all contributed to buy our snacks,” Gabatin said.

The fishermen started planting mangroves in Pilar and Arnedo, two of the four original member-villages of Kaisaka. The others are Binabalian and Balingasay.

The next year, the MERF and the Haribon Foundation resumed implementation of the CBCRM project until 2002. The Asian Social Institute, provincial government, the Bolinao Marine Ecological Fund Foundation and Glaxo-Smith Klein, a pharmaceutical firm, contributed to the mangrove rehabilitation efforts.

Kaisaka became a partner of the SLGP for the implementation of the CBCRM programs and other activities in 2002. The original four groups increased to 10 when more villages joined the federation.

Challenges

Challenges were plenty along the way, said Annabelle Echavez, Kaisaka secretary. She cited an incident when a resident asked then Bolinao Mayor Jesus Celeste to stop fishermen from planting mangroves in a proposed fishpond site.

“The mayor sent somebody to stop us. With muddied feet, we trooped to his office and explained what we were doing. In the end, he told us to go on planting,” Echavez said.

In 2004, Kaisaka obtained P2.5 million from the UNDP for the mangroves projects and sanctuaries.

The fishermen learned some lessons in planting mangroves, Gabatin said. For one, mortality rate was high because “we did not put nets around the plantation.” During high tide, plastic and dead sea grasses would wound around the plants, depriving these of sunlight. Barnacles suffocated the plants.

“We will replant the areas again,” Junsan said.

Kaisaka had already included nets in a proposal for a P1.5-million funding which the Philippine Tropical Conservation Foundation approved.

While most residents are already aware of environmental protection, others are stubborn, Gabatin said. Some people would gather shells in the mangrove sites, killing the plants, although these already abound with crustaceans and fish. Others, however, would drive them away, telling them to fish elsewhere.

Rivers are Carbon Processors, not Inert Pipelines

http://www.waterlink-international.com/news/id342-Rivers_are_Carbon_Processors,_not_Inert_Pipelines.html

Rivers are Carbon Processors, not Inert Pipelines

02/12/2008 Waterlink International -

Microorganisms in rivers and streams play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle that has not previously been considered. Freshwater ecologist Dr. Tom Battin, of the University of Vienna, told a COST ESF Frontiers of Science conference in October that our understanding of how rivers and streams deal with organic carbon has changed radically. Microorganisms such as bacteria and single-celled algae in rivers and streams decompose organic matter as it flows downstream. They convert the carbon it contains into carbon dioxide, which is then released to the atmosphere.

Recent estimates by Battin's team and others conclude there is a net flux, or outgassing, of carbon dioxide from the world's rivers and streams to the atmosphere of at least two-thirds to three-quarters of a gigatonne (Gt) of carbon per year. This flux has not been taken into account in the models of the global carbon cycle used to predict climate change.

"Surface water drainage networks perfuse and integrate the landscape, across the whole planet," says Battin, "but they are missing from all global carbon cycling, even from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports. Rivers are just considered as inert pipelines, receiving organic carbon from Earth and transporting it to the ocean." This thinking, according to Battin, has changed radically in last few years.

He argues that the latest estimates of how much carbon is transferred to the atmosphere from rivers and streams are very conservative. "The actual outgassing of carbon dioxide is probably closer to 2 Gt of carbon per year," says Battin. "Our surface area estimates only consider larger streams and rivers, because it is very hard to estimate accurately the surface area of small streams. So small streams are excluded, although in terms of microbial activity, they are the most reactive in the network."

Two gigatonnes of carbon per year is close to half the estimated net primary production of the world's vegetation each year. Realising that this quantity of carbon may be delivered straight back to the atmosphere, rather than being taken to the ocean where some of it is removed by marine organisms and ends up in sediment, could have profound consequences for our understanding of the system.

In a disturbing development, Battin's team lab has recently found that engineered nanoparticles can significantly compromise the freshwater microbes involved in carbon cycling. "This finding is a real challenge to science," says Battin. "Engineered nanoparticles such as titanium dioxide are expected to increase in the environment, but it remains completely unknown how they might affect the functioning of ecosystems."

This research was presented at the "Complex Systems: Water and Life" Frontiers of Science conference, organized by European Science Foundation (ESF) and COST, 29-31 October, Taormina, Sicily.

Climate Change, Human Health & Natural Ocean Carbon Solutions

Climate change poses a great current and future threat to human health.

This threat could be reduced in coastal and island nations by gearing climate change funds with natural ocean carbon solutions, providing the financial resources to support sustainable living practices (including improved water quality, etc.).

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080124190814.htm

Climate Change Poses A Huge Threat To Human Health

ScienceDaily (Jan. 30, 2008) — Climate change will have a huge impact on human health and bold environmental policy decisions are needed now to protect the world's population, according to the author of an article published in the British Medical Journal.

The threat to human health is of a more fundamental kind than is the threat to the world's economic system, says Professor McMichael, a Professor of public health from the Australian National University. "Climate change is beginning to damage our natural life-support system," he says.

The risks to health are many, and include the impact of heat waves, floods and wildfires, changes in infectious disease patterns, the effect of worsening food yields and loss of livelihoods.

The World Health Organisation estimates that a quarter of the world's disease burden is due to the contamination of air, water, soil and food -- particularly from respiratory infections and diarrhoeal disease.

Climate change, says Professor McMichael, will make these and other diseases worse. While it is unlikely to cause entirely new diseases it will alter the incidence, range and seasonality of many existing health disorders. So, for example, by 2080 between 20 and 70 million more people could be living in malarial regions due to climate change.

The adverse health impacts will be much greater in low-income countries and vulnerable sub-populations than in richer nations.

Professor McMichael says: "Poverty cannot be eliminated while environmental degradation exacerbates malnutrition, disease and injury. Food supplies need continuing soil fertility, climatic stability, freshwater supplies and ecological support (such as pollination). Infectious diseases cannot be stabilised in circumstances of climatic instability, refugee flows and impoverishment."

The relationship between the environment and health is complex. For example, as India modernises it expects the health of its population to improve, yet industrialisation also means a rapidly increased level of coal-burning and greater global emissions. This in turn leads to climate change, the impact of which is felt most by vulnerable populations.

Professor McMichael concludes that the global changes we are seeing now are unprecedented in their scale, and healthcare systems should develop strategies to deal with the resulting growing burden of disease and injury. More bold and far-sighted policy decisions need to be taken at national and international level to arrest the process and health professionals "have both the opportunity and responsibility to contribute to resolving this momentous issue."

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Coastal carbon sinks are shrinking

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925425.200-coastal-carbon-sinks-are-shrinking.html

11 March 2006 / NewScientist Magazine issue 2542

MANGROVE forests play a major role in pumping carbon from the atmosphere into the ocean, and may help regulate greenhouse gas concentrations. The trouble is, they are disappearing.

Mangroves are the intertidal forests that fringe many tropical coastlines. Like all plants, mangroves fix carbon dioxide from the air through photosynthesis and return organic material to the soil when they decompose. But because their roots and soil are regularly washed by tides, much of this organic carbon leaches into the ocean.

Researchers led by Thorsten Dittmar of Florida State University in Tallahassee measured how much mangroves contribute to the organic carbon dissolved in ocean waters off the coast of Brazil. They estimated that, worldwide, mangroves contribute a hefty 10 per cent to the ocean's dissolved organic carbon (Global Biogeochemical Cycles, DOI: 10.1029/2005GB002570).

This is roughly equal to the amount entering the ocean from the Amazon river, the largest single source of dissolved organic carbon. Much of the carbon produced by mangroves is in the form of molecules that are highly resistant to decomposition, so it is likely to remain in the ocean for decades instead of being returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

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Coastal Seas & Marine Food Web Important for Carbon Sink

Note how carbon is fixed in the ocean, in two ways:

1) by the 'physical pump' (the balance between concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere and seawater), and

2) by photosynthesis (growing of algae) which is assimilated in the marine food web (into organisms and their carbon-containing waste products).

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North Sea Efficient Sink For Carbon Dioxide

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051011065902.htm

ScienceDaily (Oct. 12, 2005) -

A relatively large number of algae grow in the North Sea. These form the basis for a much richer food chain than that found in the Atlantic Ocean. Dutch-sponsored researcher Yann Bozec calculated that coastal seas such as the North Sea remove about three times as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than would be expected on the basis of their small surface area.

The measured annual increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is only 60 percent of the annual emissions from fossil fuels. The other 40 percent is absorbed by the seas and oceans. Yann Bozec investigated how the North Sea fulfils this task.

Up until now, little was known about the concentrations and transport cycle of CO2 in the North Sea. This lack of data was rectified with four expeditions, each of one-month duration, with the oceanographic research vessel 'Pelagia' from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ). Per expedition the researchers made a vertical water profile at 97 locations. Travelling between locations they also measured the levels of CO2, nutrients (phosphate, nitrogen and silicate), and the amount of algal growth. This resulted in the most extensive and accurate data set ever for a coastal sea.

Bozec used these data to calculate how much carbon dioxide the North Sea absorbs from the atmosphere each year and then stores in the deep North Atlantic Ocean. This storage capacity was found to be almost three times as high as the average for all of the world's seas. When the data over the entire North Sea were pooled, this gave an annual net uptake of carbon dioxide of no less than 8.5 million tonnes of carbon per year. If this performance is theoretically extrapolated to all of the world's coastal seas - of which the North Sea constitutes just 2 percent - then these would together account for about 20 percent of the carbon dioxide uptake for all of world's seas, even though they only account for 7 percent of the sea surface. Therefore coastal seas absorb CO2 far more efficiently than open oceans.

Seawater can absorb carbon dioxide in two different ways. The 'physical pump' works as a result of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere being higher than that in the seawater. As nature always tries to restore the balance, carbon dioxide flows from the atmosphere into the surface of the seawater. In the winter, the surface water in the cold polar seas cools down and becomes slightly heavier. As a result of this it sinks under its own weight into the deep sea.

The second way is by algae fixing carbon dioxide under the influence of sunlight (photosynthesis). This mechanism is important in the North Sea. Algae grow in the surface water and form their cell material by assimilating carbon dioxide from the seawater. This reduces the carbon dioxide concentration in the seawater thereby allowing more carbon dioxide to be absorbed from the atmosphere. The algae are further assimilated in the entire food web. As a result of this water that flows out of the North Sea is much richer in organisms (and carbon-containing waste products from these) than the inflowing, blue oceanic water.

Yann Bozec's research was funded by NWO.

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Turning the tide on global warming (salt marshes & carbon)

http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/36/15/tide/

Sara Strawczynski, Spark Writer | Geography professor Gail Chmura has made a career of playing in mud. Chmura studies salt marshes, the transitional zone between land and ocean. Salt marshes filter pollutants, buffer coasts from flooding and provide habitats for waterfowl and fish. Chmura's latest research suggests that salt marshes also function as a carbon sink -- an area that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thereby slowing global warming.

Professor Gail Chmura, Department of Geography
Claudio Calligaris

"The global significance of salt marshes is often overlooked because they comprise just a fraction of the Earth's surface, and relative to other ecosystems like tropical mangrove swamps, they host few species," explained Chmura. These temperate wetlands flood with salt water at high tide but are dry at low tide. Rising sea levels for over two centuries have created bigger tides that flood further inland, expanding salt marshes. As their area increases, so does their environmental importance.

You can see the thickness of the salt marsh soil in this photo of an exposed marsh, submerged at high tide. Chmura placed her knapsack there for scale. There are no rocks in the marshes, the ones here were once part of a road bed. Gail Chmura

Two distinct characteristics make salt marshes efficient carbon sinks. First, salt marshes accumulate soil at a remarkable rate. "They can grow in depth by up to three millimeters a year because the tides constantly deposit sediments in the marsh," said Chmura. "Forest soil might not accumulate that depth for a century." Plants and microscopic organisms living in salt marshes can get buried under newly deposited sediments. The carbon contained within these organisms gets trapped in the salt marsh and is prevented from escaping into the atmosphere, where it might act as a greenhouse gas and contribute to global warming.

A second feature that makes salt marshes efficient carbon sinks is that bacteria living in salt marshes do not emit methane. Bacteria are nature's recyclers -- they decompose organic material and release the contents into the environment. In certain conditions bacteria produce methane as a decomposition product; released into the atmosphere, this carbon-based gas might contribute to global warming. Bacteria living in salt marshes do not produce methane, perhaps because the sulfide present in salt marshes is toxic to methane producers. Alternatively, bacteria that subsist on sulfide might outcompete methane producers within the marsh.

Much of Chmura's research is based at the Huntsman Science Centre, a McGill-affiliated field station at the Bay of Fundy on Canada's East coast. Famous for its world-record high tides, the Bay of Fundy also contains salt marshes where Chmura measures sedimentation rates. "We bury metal markers on the marsh and cover the marsh surface with a layer of white clay. We come back after a year or two to measure how much sediment has accumulated" she explained. "The fun part is locating the markers we left behind. We get to walk around the marsh with a metal detector because they are completely covered in mud." Once located, the depth of accumulated soil at each marker site is documented and samples are obtained using a coring device that preserves mud's vertical profile. Back at Chmura's McGill lab, samples are tested for carbon content and the rate of carbon accumulation is calculated.

An added angle to Chmura's research is that humans have affected salt marshes to varying degrees over time. An estimated 85 percent of the salt marshes in the Bay of Fundy have been altered by humans. Starting with the Acadians in the 17th century, salt marshes were dammed and dyked to create agricultural land. Over time, many of these structures fell into disrepair, allowing marshes to flood again, though not always to the same extent as the original marsh. Chmura explained that human alteration of Atlantic salt marshes has created a giant natural experiment. "The question is to determine how each salt marsh, given its unique history and its current use, is able to accumulate carbon and perform other ecosystem functions like providing habitat for fishes and birds." In order to compare the various marshes, Chmura must piece together each marsh's muddy history. She uses old documents, aerial photographs and abandoned structures on salt marshes to unravel the human impact at each site.

Low tide at Wood Point Marsh, New Brunswick. Here McGill gratuate student Marie Graf researches grass production and mud deposition. Gail Chmura

Chmura's work suggests that natural and human modified salt marshes do not perform identical ecosystem services. "Unfortunately, farmed salt marshes no longer act as carbon sinks," she explained. "They are not nearly as valuable as carbon stores because they do not flood, and so they cannot accumulate sediments brought in by the tides." Chmura estimates that if all of the Bay of Fundy's original salt marshes were allowed to flood tidally, or were "restored," the increased carbon stored would be the equivalent to around five percent of Canada's targeted reduction of greenhouse gas emissions pledged under the Kyoto Protocol; however, dyked salt marshes serve as farmland, residential areas and even crucial infrastructure like the Trans-Canada Highway. Chmura recognizes that reverting them all back to flooding salt marshes is unrealistic. Still, she hopes that future coastal developments will consider the important ecological services that salt marshes perform.

McGill's SPARK program (Students Promoting Awareness of Research Knowledge) is funded by NSERC and run by the Faculty of Education, VP Research Office and the University Relations Office. See www.spark.mcgill.ca for more information and articles.

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