This month marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Save San Francisco Bay Association - the oldest Save the Bay organization. 50 years ago, pollution in the Bay was so bad, it prompted Pete Seeger to write a song about it. Listen to this short news clip for the full story.

Now, what's this have to do with wetlands carbon? San Francisco Bay has lost 95% of its original tidal wetlands. There is a plan to restore the Bay that sets a goal of 100,000 acres of healthy tidal marsh. Thanks in part to the work of Save the Bay, 44,000 acres exist today and 32,000 acres of restorable shoreline areas have been acquired and are being planned for restoration, including the South Bay Salt Pond Project, Bair Island, Hamilton Field and others areas.

That leaves 24,000 acres of restorable wetlands that need to be protected for restoration.  Blue carbon, the carbon stored in and sequestered by wetland soils, coud help make a difference in the restoration of the 32,000 acres already protected, and in protecting and restoring the remaining 24,000 acres.

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The American Association for the Advancement of Science will feature a symposium titled "Blue Carbon, Green Opportunities: Innovative Solutions to Protect Coastal Ecosystems" at it's Annual Meeting on February 17th in Vancouver, BC. Here is the session description.

"Coastal, estuarine, and marine ecosystems play a substantial role in carbon sequestration and storage ("blue" carbon), as documented by international reports. In particular, coastal habitats such as salt marsh, mangrove forests, and seagrass beds are net carbon sinks storing up to three to five times more carbon than tropical forests by area. Thus, these ecosystems play an important role in climate mitigation and adaptation. Protection and restoration of these coastal ecosystems provide these climate-related benefits, while also supporting a variety of critical ecosystem services. As a result, there is growing interest domestically and internationally in better understanding the carbon storage and sequestration functions of these coastal habitats and developing carbon market protocols for valuing these carbon services. The ultimate goal of these efforts is to develop incentives, including greenhouse gas accounting protocols, that will prevent degradation of these valuable habitats and subsequent rapid release of their large carbon stores that contribute to global climate change. To achieve these goals, innovations in natural and social science as well as policy are needed. The objectives of this symposium are to share recent advances in both the science and policy of coastal carbon and connect those advances to decision-making in the United States and internationally."

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A new study finds that Australia's coastal marine ecosystems provide $15.8 billion in climate regulation services annually, primarily through carbon sequestration and storage in seagrass beds. The report, "Stocking Up: securing our marine economy," authored by Laura Eadie and Caroline Hoisington of the Centre for Policy Development, includes estimates of a range of ecosystem services for Australia's marine environment.

Bringing these values to market to help protect and restore coastal ecosystems is at the heart of RAE's wetlands carbon effort.

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Kudos to NOAA for posting two powerpoint presentations on coastal blue carbon at their central library site.

The first is about the international blue carbon effort, by Emily Pidgeon of Conservation International.

The second is on the economics of coastal blue carbon, by Linwood Pendleton, NOAA's acting chief economist.

Check it out!

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A poll released on August 29 shows 78% of respondents believe that "Using wetlands to capture and store carbon dioxide is a worthwhile endeavor." 22% believe that "Climate change is not really a significant problem, so efforts to capture carbon are not really a worthwhile endeavor, whether or not it could restore the ecosystem."

The national scientific poll was commissioned by the America's WETLAND Foundation and conducted by The Kitchens Group, a Florida-based national market research firm. There were 1,132 respondents and the poll has a margin of error of 2.9%.

The poll also shows that 91% of Americans believe the Gulf Coast is vital to the nation's economy and domestic energy security and the U.S. should invest additional funds in restoring the area.

Full details are available at www.Americaswetland.com.

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A blog post from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center does an excellent job of describing the release of methane in wetlands, and how that can be taken into consideration in the context of blue carbon.  According to the post, "scientists estimate wetlands are responsible for anywhere from 15 to 45 percent of all methane emissions." Importantly, though, in salt marshes the methane emissions are less problematic from a net greenhouse gas perspective. The blog concludes that "creating or restoring the saltiest wetlands has promise as a way of absorbing greenhouse gases, provided they continue to sit well above sea level."

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Selling carbon credits for wetlands projects is just one way that landowners could receive payments for conservation practices on their lands. Others include wetland and stream mitigation banking, conservation banking for habitat or species credits, water quality and nutrient trading, and other ecosystem services for which their is a demand.

So where does wetlands carbon fit into all this? Another way of asking this question is can a landowner receive multiple payments for the same activities on the same land - can s/he "stack" multiple ecosystem services? The key consideration from a carbon credit perspective is additionality. Carbon credits are required to be additional - which essentially means that a carbon offsets project would not have occurred in the absence of carbon finance.  A new article by Lydia Olander of Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions explores the issue of stacking and does an excellent job of laying out the various underlying considerations.

A second resource is a working paper also written by Lydia with David Cooley.

It is my expectation and desire that wetlands carbon will become an important new converation incentive in the near future (3-5 years), creating new opportunities for private investment in coastal protection and restoration that also achieves climate adaptation and mitigation goals.

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"Mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrasses may be the latest ecosystems to attract carbon finance as researchers and companies see potential in the ability of the ‘blue carbon’ sinks to soak up huge amounts of climate-changing emissions," according to a story by Point Carbon yesterday.

This isn't news to those of us who have been working on blue carbon for a while, but it is significant that Thomas Reuters Point Carbon, which provides global news and analysis for carbon markets, is now reporting on the opportunity.

Also of note is a recent (March 2011) article "Restoring Coastal Plants to Improve Global Carbon Storage: Reaping What We Sow" by Andrew D. Irving*, Sean D. Connell, and Bayden D. Russell. Here's an excerpt from the abstract: "Until recently, the significant below-ground CCS capacity of coastal vegetation such as seagrasses, salt marshes, and mangroves has largely gone unrecognized in models of global carbon transfer. However, this reservoir of natural, free, and sustainable carbon storage potential is increasingly jeopardized by alarming trends in coastal habitat loss, totalling 30–50% of global abundance over the last century alone. Human intervention to restore lost habitats is a potentially powerful solution to improve natural rates of global CCS, but data suggest this approach is unlikely to substantially improve long-term CCS unless current restoration efforts are increased to an industrial scale."

In future posts I'll provide a summary of why we're so interested in wetlands carbon, the state of the science, policy efforts in the U.S. and globally, and announce new publications and developments. And I appreciate your suggestions for additional topics.

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It’s been a good week for blue carbon.

About 30 international policy and wetland science experts gathered in Arlington, VA, hosted by Conservation International, the IUCN, and IOC, to strategize how to advance blue carbon globally, both as an incentive for coastal conservation and as a finance mechanism. The International Blue Carbon Policy Working Group mapped out strategies for mangroves, salt marsh and sea grasses.

Part of the discussion focused on developing blue carbon projects that enhance the livelihoods of the communities that live and depend on the coast. In developing countries, destroying mangroves to create shrimp ponds deprives local people of the natural resources they need. In the U.S., the loss of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands is preventing people from living the way they always have along the coast. Everywhere that we have damaged or destroyed coastal wetlands, we have impacted the natural resources and the livelihoods of the people who depend on them.

Destruction of wetlands has global consequences as well. Carbon that has built up in the soils over hundreds and thousands of years is released to the atmosphere in a relatively short period of time, representing a significant contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

Blue carbon projects - projects that protect existing wetlands and their stores of carbon, and those that restore the natural carbon sequestration processes of degraded wetlands - represent an opportunity to mitigate climate change by reducing emissions and increasing carbon sequestration; to create resilient coastal habitats that have a greater ability to adapt to sea level rise; and bring back opportunities for people to live sustainably on the coast.

At a time when the U.S. economy is struggling to recover, it’s also important to note that coastal habitat restoration and protection efforts create jobs and provide local and national economic benefits.

The discussion at the blue carbon meeting this week reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Aldo Leopold, a U.S. conservationist, in A Sand County Almanac: “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

The science necessary to quantify the greenhouse gas benefits of blue carbon projects has arrived. It’s now time to demonstrate the potential of blue carbon through pilot projects throughout the world - ecologically driven projects that provide climate mitigation and adaptation benefits while improving the livelihood of local communities.

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Welcome to the RAE Wetlands Carbon Blog. The purpose of the Blog is to advance wetlands carbon as a new source of funding for tidal wetlands restoration and protection projects and as a coastal management tool.  I welcome your ideas for content and your reactions to blog posts.

Last week, I attended the Ecosystems Markets Conference in Madison, WI, hosted by the American Forest Foundation and World Resources Institute. The Conference was successful in stirring excellent discussion about the future of ecosystem service markets, including carbon. I was struck by how important markets are for ensuring rigorous standards and high quality projects. Buyers of credits want to know what they are getting: that the credit is of high quality and meets certain standards.  And better projects provide better ecological benefits, too.

While the Conference was taking place, elsewhere, Mary Nichols of the California Air Resources Board announced it will delay implementation of its greenhouse gas cap and trade program by one year, to January 1, 2013.  This will allow us additional time to develop the science and tools - e.g. methodologies and protocols - required for the issuance of carbon credits for tidal wetlands projects.

Next week, I’ll be in DC for the first international blue carbon policy working group, hosted by IUCN, Conservation International, and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Participants will be asked to strategize how to advance blue carbon in international frameworks and agreements, such as the UNFCC, IPCC and Ramsar. The policy working group is working in parallel with the science working group, which first convened in Paris in February, and is meeting again in Indonesia later this month.

I am delighted to be working with the global community of wetlands scientists and climate policy specialists. Progress that we make in the U.S. on tidal wetlands is paving the way forward for the global effort, and advances made by the international community reinforce and support the U.S. effort.

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