Notification

Date: 10.08.2020

Needs for managing coastal blue carbon ecosystems

Coastal blue carbon refers to the carbon captured by living organisms in coastal (e.g. mangroves, saltmarshes and seagrasses) and marine ecosystems and stored in biomass and sediments.  While coastal blue carbon ecosystems can sequester and store significant amounts of CO₂ over years to millennia they can also be a substantial source of carbon emissions when disturbed or drained. About one third of the area covered by these ecosystems has already been lost, and they continue to face ongoing threats.

These ecosystems provide a number of important ecosystem services, including: carbon sequestration and climate regulation, coastal protection, food to support sustainable livelihoods, habitat provision, purification of water and air and recreational experiences.

Background

Paragraph 13a of Resolution XIII.14 on conservation, restoration and sustainable management of coastal blue carbon ecosystems requests the Secretariat, subject to the availability of resources:

a.      to survey interested Contracting Parties to determine their requirements in relation to managing coastal blue-carbon ecosystems, which could include assessing ecosystem components, benefits and services (including for climate mitigation and adaptation), conservation, restoration, sustainable management, capacity-building needs, and learning from others.

The outcomes from the survey are intended to be used by the Secretariat to guide capacity building and knowledge exchange around the sustainable management of coastal blue carbon ecosystems.

The survey results will also be used to guide the work of the Scientific and Technical Review Panel (STRP) on coastal blue carbon ecosystems and to guide efforts on a global assessment of the condition, trends and management of these ecosystems under the framework of Resolution XIII.14.

General guidance for completing and submitting the survey

Important – please read this guidance section before starting to complete the survey

All Sections of the questionnaire should be completed in one of the Convention’s official languages (English, French, Spanish).

You are encouraged to complete the questionnaire using the following link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/bluecarbon and click on the submit at the end. For Contracting Parties that won’t be able to use the link for technical reasons, please contact Catherine Loetscher at loetscher@ramsar.org; The deadline for submission of the completed questionnaire is Wednesday the 28th of August 2020. A reminder email will be sent out to contracting parties on the 21^st  of August.  It will not be possible to consider information received after that date in the analysis and reporting.

This survey seeks to understand the needs of Contracting Parties in relation to the conservation, restoration and sustainable management of coastal blue carbon ecosystems in their territories.

The survey should take about 10 minutes to complete.

It is intended that the information provided in this survey will be shared for the purposes of implementing Resolution XIII.14. The results from the survey will be analysed and information summarized by region.  There will be no attribution to individual countries.

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