New Approach to Blue Carbon Projects Underway in Colombia
A mangrove preservation project along Colombia’s Caribbean coast is using a more comprehensive method to calculate how much carbon is stored in coastal and marine ecosystems, potentially boosting global efforts to conserve so-called blue carbon.
Conservation International, working with several partners in Colombia, is spearheading a mangrove protection initiative in Cispatá, Colombia that calculates not only the amount of carbon stored above-water in mangrove trees but also the amount stored underwater in roots and soil. Previous blue carbon projects in mangrove forests have generally counted only carbon stored above water. But since as much as 60 percent of a wetland’s or a mangrove forest’s carbon is sequestered underwater, the new accounting method increases the amount and value of carbon that communities can claim if they protect mangrove forests.
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In the lush, bright-green thickets of the Philippine’s Agusan Marsh, nestled in the country’s far south Mindanao island, children steer canoes through meandering waterways and swim in lakes.
The marsh is a playground, as well as a source of food, shelter, and culture for the Manobo Indigenous tribe that lives there in moored floating houses that rise and fall with the rainy seasons. For hundreds of years, this wetland ecosystem has been a veritable paradise for the Manobo people who make a living there hunting and fishing. The more than 100,000 inland acres is also home to nearly 200 species of birds, as well as mammals, reptiles, and fish living in the region.