Blue Carbon: A Transformational Tool for Global Marine Management and Conservation

Coastal “blue” carbon – carbon stored in the coastal ecosystems of mangroves, seagrasses and tidal marshes – has strong potential to transform management and conservation of coastal ecosystems. Coastal ecosystems are the fastest disappearing ecosystems on Earth - on average 2 % are lost every year - a result of poorly-managed development, clearing for aquaculture and pollution. Losing these ecosystems means losing the coastal protection and food security that they provide, services that are the foundation of resilience to climate change for the over 20 % of the world’s population that live within 20 miles of a coast. Further, we now know that destruction of coastal systems not only erodes our capacity to adapt to climate change but is also a cause of climate change in itself. Policy and management that conserves coastal systems rich in blue carbon is an urgent priority.

Scientific understanding of carbon sequestration and emissions from coastal ecosystems is now sufficient to develop effective management, policy, and conservation for blue carbon.  A growing number of governments and organizations are exploring mechanisms for implementing blue carbon based projects. Many existing policy agreements and carbon financing mechanisms are immediately applicable, but challenges remain. Appropriate carbon accounting needs to be established.  How should blue carbon be integrated into the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and related activities such as the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism? Can other international conventions and agreements such as the Convention for Biological Diversity support blue carbon-based conservation of coastal systems? How can carbon markets incorporate blue carbon based credits?

Conservation International (CI), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the Intergovernmental Oceanic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO are currently working with partners to build the Blue Carbon Initiative. The initiative addresses the urgent policy, management and science needs. This includes providing a robust scientific basis for coastal carbon conservation and management and developing policy designed to support incentives for coastal blue carbon-based management. Globally we are critically dependant on the health of our coastal ecosystems to provide both climate change adaptation and mitigation. Blue carbon provides a fundamental new tool to coastal management for conserving the most threatened natural systems on Earth.