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Building Blue Carbon Projects
An Introductory Guide
Seagrass beds provide critical habitat for many important commercial and recreational fisheries such as the Florida
stone crab, pictured here in Biscayne Bay, Florida (Image credit Steven J Lutz, GRID-Arendal).
The many ecosystem functions and services that coastal and marine ecosystems provide are
tightly interlinked. For example, by conserving mangroves of other coastal ecosystems to
maximise Blue Carbon, broader biodiversity is protected; fish habitats remain intact, leading to
increased fisheries production; the natural
waste processing function of wetlands is maintained,
leading to better water quality; coastal zones are
better buffered from the potential damaging
impacts
of storms; and opportunities for improving coastally-dependent livelihoods can be
realized. These ecosystem services are thus co-benefits to Blue Carbon and in turn, Blue Carbon is
a co-benefit of these other services.
A Combined Blue Carbon and Ecosystem Services Approach
A combined Blue Carbon and ecosystem services approach may be necessary to secure the
sustainable management of Blue Carbon ecosystems. Blue Carbon by itself may not generate
enough funds to support the sustainable financing of conservation efforts, due to potentially high
opportunity costs associated with coastal land, the high transaction costs associated with these
types of projects (development, verification, and monitoring costs may outweigh carbon revenue),
and a relatively low current price of carbon on the carbon market. A bundled or combined
approach with payments for other ecosystem services may be necessary to ensure long-term
sustainable financing and management.
