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Building Blue Carbon Projects
An Introductory Guide
1.4
Improving Coastal Ecosystem Management through Blue Carbon
While there seems to be a general notion that Blue Carbon projects are directly linked to
generating carbon offsets, or another financial return, that is not necessarily the case. A Blue
Carbon project explores the climate change mitigation value of a coastal ecosystem in order to
motivate its improved management. Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes such as
carbon offsets in both the regulatory and voluntary market provide a central incentive in this
context. However, other mechanisms may also support improved ecosystem management such as
conservation agreements and or the recognition of the value of Blue Carbon in existing and new
policy and management. Figure 2 proposes five potential pathways to use the value of Blue
Carbon to improve coastal ecosystem management, conserve Blue Carbon ecosystems, support
sustainable livelihoods and address climate change.
Additionally, the valuation of ecosystem services beyond carbon sequestration and storage may
give further incentives for improved ecosystem management, and may be a significant factor for
management frameworks and actions (discussed further in Section 4).
Figure 2
Five potential pathways to use the value of Blue Carbon (developed from NOAA, 2011).
Carbon finance is briefly discussed in the following and Section 2. Examples of potential national
and international Blue Carbon relevant policies are provided in Section 1.3. Combining Blue
Carbon with the valuation of other ecosystem services is discussed in Section 4. Other potential
Blue Carbon mechanisms and pathways such as conservation agreements, funds and debt-for-
nature swap remain to be explored.
