Leveraging the Carbon Market for Wetland Conservation

Globally, coastal habitats are converted because market forces incentivize the conversion of coastal ecosystems to other uses or environmental regulations are not strong enough to promote habitat conservation.  By leveraging the carbon storage capacity of mangroves, sea grasses, and salt marshes (coastal blue carbon), the voluntary carbon market can be used to mitigate climate change and provide an additional mechanism for protecting and restoring coastal habitats.  The VCSA established the VCS Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) program in 2007, bringing land-use change projects into the carbon market.  Under the VCS Program, the carbon market has been leveraged to avoid deforestation and reduce emissions in terrestrial habitats and the same is possible for wetland habitats using blue carbon.  In order to achieve additional wetland conservation, the VCSA’s Wetlands Technical Advisory Group is developing requirements which will allow for wetland methodologies and projects to be developed that reduce emissions.  This presentation will discuss the development of these program requirements and how the carbon market can be leveraged to provide new incentives or funding to protect and restore wetlands.