Explainer
Besides capturing and sequestering carbon, coastal blue carbon ecosystems play a crucial role in climate change adaptation and mitigation. They offer protection from storms and rising sea levels, prevent shoreline erosion, regulate water quality, provide habitats for aquatic species and support food security for coastal communities. However, these ecosystems are highly threatened: It is believed that roughly ⅓ of seagrass meadows and tidal marshes and ⅔ of the world’s mangroves have been lost. As these blue carbon ecosystems degrade, not only are their future carbon capture and climate adaptation potentials lost, but the enormous amounts of carbon that they have been storing are then released into the atmosphere.