![]() This approach creates a financial incentive for restoration and conservation projects by helping to alleviate federal and state carbon taxes aimed at discouraging the use of fossil fuels. One method of slowing climate change impacts is to incorporate coastal wetlands into the carbon market through the buying and selling of carbon offsets. When we protect the carbon in coastal systems, we protect healthy coastal environments that provide many other benefits to people, such as recreational opportunities, storm protection, and nursery habitat for commercial and recreational fisheries. So protecting and restoring coastal habitats is a good way to reduce climate change. When these systems are damaged, an enormous amount of carbon is emitted back into the atmosphere, where it can then contribute to climate change. The bigger picture of blue carbon is one of coastal habitat conservation. The carbon found in coastal soil is often thousands of years old! Most of the carbon taken up by these ecosystems is stored below ground where we can't see it, but it is still there. These coastal systems, though much smaller in size than the planet's forests, sequester this carbon at a much faster rate, and can continue to do so for millions of years. Sea grasses, mangroves, and salt marshes along our coast "capture and hold" carbon, acting as something called a carbon sink. What you may not have heard is that our ocean and coasts provide a natural way of reducing the impact of greenhouse gases on our atmosphere, through sequestration (or taking in) of this carbon. You have also heard that these gases are changing the world's climate, and not in a good way. You have probably heard that human activities emit (or give off) something called carbon dioxide, which contains atmospheric carbon. ![]() Have you ever heard of blue carbon? Chances are the answer is no, but perhaps you know more than you realize.īlue carbon is simply the term for carbon captured by the world's ocean and coastal ecosystems. Something that has a significant effect on our daily lives and is stored within the largest system of water on our planet must be a household name, right? Not necessarily. guide that makes salt marsh restoration eligible for international carbon markets research that documents carbon storage capabilities in the marsh workshops and school curricula on the topic and newsletters and technical assistance. Efforts thus far have produced the first-ever U.S. These markets balance projects that feature heat-trapping emissions with contributions that take carbon out of the atmosphere. Our results indicated that terrestrial aboveground C sequestration rates might be an appropriate indicator for assessing Andean forest and páramo recovery after human disturbance.NOAA’s National Estuarine Research Reserves and their partners are working to make wetlands conservation and restoration profitable while lessening greenhouse gas emissions through blue carbon financial markets. Temporal changes in BGB-C stocks on the contrary were non-significant. In the páramo, higher sequestration rates for AGB-C were found at higher elevations and associated with higher levels of growth-forms diversity. In the Andean forest, plots with low dominance of Baccharis padifolia were observed to present higher AGB-C and lower BGB-C sequestration rates. Carbon sequestration rates were partly explained by environmental variables. Net increases in AGB-C stocks were the largest in the Andean forest and páramo, 2.5 Mg C ha-1 year-1 and 1.5 Mg C ha-1 year-1 respectively. Likewise, significant temporal changes were found for AGB-C and AGN-C stocks. Páramo C stocks´ spatial variation were related to the elevation gradient we found a positive significant trend in páramo AGB-C stocks with elevation, whereas we found a significant negative trend in AGN-C stocks. Andean forest C stocks were influenced mainly by disturbance history and tree-species composition. To explore potential drivers of spatiotemporal variation of the forest and páramo C stocks they were related to abiotic and biotic variables. ![]() The soil organic carbon (SOC) stock to 36-cm depth was also quantified during the 2012 survey. Within the Yanacocha Reserve in 20 the aboveground biomass (AGB), aboveground necromass (AGN) and belowground biomass (BGB) carbon (C) stocks were measured and C sequestration rates calculated as proxy of ecosystem recovery. We assessed Andean forest (Polylepis stands) and páramo grassland recovery along an elevation gradient (3,600-4,350 m.a.s.l.) in the Yanacocha Reserve (Ecuador) where natural recovery has been allowed since 1995. Few studies exist that document how high-elevation Andean ecosystems recover naturally after the cessation of human activities and this can limit the implementation of cost-effective restoration actions.
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