Climate Conversations - Uprooting families to save trees

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

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

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

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

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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

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

Blue Carbon - Another Reason to Love Coastal Habitats

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

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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

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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?

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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?

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."

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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)