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The Demonstration Project has provided guidance to
the Emirate on the use of Blue Carbon to secure eco-
system services vital to the Emirate and beyond (man-
groves, saltmarshes, seagrass and potentially algal
mats), based on scientific assessment. Stakeholders in
the Emirate have shown enthusiasm for the opportuni-
ties the project presents; the establishment of a special-
ised fund for the protection of ecosystems is already in
the early stages.
During 2013 GRID-Arendal incorporated the first inter-
national Blue Carbon capacity building exchange into
the project. Scientists from Madagascar and Indonesia
were able to participate in the Blue Carbon baseline as-
sessment in Abu Dhabi. These scientists also represented
partners from the GEF Blue Forests Project (Blue Ventures
and the Government of Indonesia). According to Lalao Ai-
grette, a Mangrove Field Scientist from Madagascar, the
experience will help “safeguard the ecological goods and
services critical to increasingly poor and vulnerable Mala-
gasy coastal communities, while also safeguarding critical
biodiversity.”
Blue Carbon Report
GRID-Arendal contributed to a major review of Australia’s
coastal wetland ecosystems as part of the Blue Carbon
Programme. Funded by the Australian Fisheries Research
and Development Corporation the study compares the
carbon capture and storage of these coastal systems with
that of Australia’s terrestrial ecosystems, including native
forests, grasslands, croplands, freshwater wetlands and
agricultural land use. The report makes 12 major recom-
mendations aimed at integrating Blue Carbon into Aus-
tralia’s national climate policy.37
 Ecosystem based management/spatial
planning
Support to UNEP Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP)
GRID-Arendal and UNEP/MAP completed the State of
the Mediterranean Marine and Coastal Environment Re-
port (SoMMCER) 2012. The objective of the report was
to synthesize information on major environmental issues
to support the continued development of an ecosystem-
based approach to marine planning in the Mediterrane-
an. A Summary for Policy Makers38 was presented at the
17th Ordinary Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the
Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment
and the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean (Barcelona
Convention) and its Protocols, held in February 2012, in
Paris, France. The full SoMMCER39 was launched in Janu-
ary 2013.
The Mediterranean Sea is complex in its ecology and its
social dimensions. Twenty-one countries border the ba-
sin of this heavily used and highly valued sea. The Barce-
37. Lawrence, A.J., Baker, E., and Lovelock, C.E. (2012). Optimising
and managing coastal carbon: Comparative sequestration and
mitigation opportunities across Australia’s landscapes and land
uses, FRDC Report 2011/084, Fisheries Research and Development
Corporation
38.
39.
Lalao Aigrette, a mangrove scien-
tist fromMadagascar, examining a
mangrove tree on a field trip in Abu
Dhabi and contributing to the first
international capacity building ex-
change in Blue Carbon (credit Blue
Ventures).