India’s extensive coastline supports all three recognized blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs): mangroves, seagrasses and saltmarshes, with limited spatial and long-term data on seagrasses and saltmarshes. Under the guidance of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), BCEs can be included for their climate change mitigation capacity under nationally determined contributions (NDCs). These coastal ecosystems also play a vital role in climate change adaptation, providing multiple co-benefits. There is further scope for their inclusion in National Adaptation Plans, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This study presents 10 priority areas for blue carbon science and policy development in India, identified from a consultative workshop held in Gujarat, India in January 2024. The priority themes that emerged included—data on BCEs extent and stocks across India, establishment of long-term monitoring programmes, assessment of BCEs co-benefits and creation of programmes for capacity building, alternative livelihoods and equitable conservation and restoration. Based on these priorities, a five-step blue carbon roadmap is outlined to support the development of an ambitious national programme for BCEs. Standardized methods and scientific approaches will ensure India’s ongoing efforts to protect and restore these vulnerable coastal habitats. This will contribute significantly to realizing the global benefits of BCEs for climate, people and nature.
Tag: Carbon sequestration
Editorial: Climate-smart bamboo forest economy for sustainable development
This editorial synthesizes emerging research on bamboo as a climate-smart, nature-based solution capable of addressing interconnected challenges related to climate change, resource depletion, sustainable development, and rural livelihoods. As global demand grows for renewable alternatives to fossil fuel-dependent and resource-intensive products, bamboo is increasingly recognized for its rapid growth, self-regenerating capacity, carbon sequestration potential, and broad range of socio-economic applications. However, while countries such as China, India, Colombia, and Ecuador have successfully integrated bamboo into economic development and environmental strategies, many African countries have yet to fully realize the resource’s potential. This special issue brings together global experiences and innovations aimed at supporting the development of a sustainable and inclusive bamboo-based economy.
Agroforestry Innovations for Improved Soil Fertility and Resilience to Climate Change
Agroforestry practices involve a wide range of trees and woody shrubs that are protected or planted and managed on agricultural landscapes. Integrating trees in cropping and livestock systems has led to the development of various agroforestry innovations. These innovations are considered to be low-cost, agro-ecologically sustainable, and can be relied upon to build smallholder farmer’s resilience to climate change. These agroforestry innovations have a great potential of contributing to both climate change adaptation and mitigation, thereby making considerable positive impact to sustainable agriculture and natural resources productivity leading to increased crop yields, better livelihoods, and a more resilient environment.
The Naalad improved fallow system in the Philippines and its implications for global warming
This handbook of locally based agricultural practices brings together the best of science and farmer experimentation, vividly illustrating the enormous diversity of shifting cultivation systems as well as the power of human ingenuity. Environmentalists have tended to disparage shifting cultivation (sometimes called ‘swidden cultivation’ or ‘slash-and-burn agriculture’) as unsustainable due to its supposed role in deforestation and land degradation. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that such indigenous practices, as they have evolved over time, can be highly adaptive to land and ecology. In contrast, ‘scientific’ agricultural solutions imposed from outside can be far more damaging to the environment. Moreover, these external solutions often fail to recognize the extent to which an agricultural system supports a way of life along with a society’s food needs. They do not recognize the degree to which the sustainability of a culture is intimately associated with the sustainability and continuity of its agricultural system. Unprecedented in ambition and scope, Voices from the Forest focuses on successful agricultural strategies of upland farmers. More than 100 scholars from 19 countries–including agricultural economists, ecologists, and anthropologists–collaborated in the analysis of different fallow management typologies, working in conjunction with hundreds of indigenous farmers of different cultures and a broad range of climates, crops, and soil conditions. By sharing this knowledge–and combining it with new scientific and technical advances–the authors hope to make indigenous practices and experience more widely accessible and better understood, not only by researchers and development practitioners, but by other communities of farmers around the world.
Global cost estimates of reducing carbon emissions through avoided deforestation
Tropical deforestation is estimated to cause about one-quarter of anthropogenic carbon emissions, loss of biodiversity, and other environmental services. United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change talks are now considering mechanisms for avoiding deforestation (AD), but the economic potential of AD has yet to be addressed. We use three economic models of global land use and management to analyze the potential contribution of AD activities to reduced greenhouse gas emissions. AD activities are found to be a competitive, low-cost abatement option. A program providing a 10% reduction in deforestation from 2005 to 2030 could provide 0.3- 0.6 Gt (1 Gt = 1 X 10’5 g) CO2’yr-1 in emission reductions and would require $0.4 billion to $1.7 billion.yr-1 for 30 years. A 50% reduction in deforestation from 2005 to 2030 could provide 1.5-2.7 Gt CO2’yr-1 in emission reductions and would require $17.2 billion to $28.0 billion.yr-1. Finally, some caveats to the analysis that could increase costs of AD programs are described.
Methods to Verify and Account for the Carbon and Soil Health Benefits of Agroforestry
The second part of the report contains a validated methodology to predict the effect of agroforestry on net greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration. In this section, selected greenhouse gas collection tools were tested at sites associated with the Living Labs in Czechia, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The examined tools include CARAT, the Farm Carbon Calculator, and the Open Farm Carbon Tracker. These evaluations highlight how digital tools can quantify both emissions and carbon storage, thereby supporting more accurate and transparent reporting along agroforestry value chains. However, their ability to account for agroforestry‑specific carbon sequestration varied substantially. Some tools rely on generic allometric factors or IPCC Tier 1 values, which do not reflect species, age, spacing, or management, and lacked species‑specific growth curves for many tree types used in agroforestry.
Measuring what matters: soil health as the missing metric in climate-smart agriculture monitoring
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has become a central framework for addressing the intersecting challenges of food security and climate change. Assessments of CSA have largely relied on measuring the adoption of practices and technologies rather than the ecological outcomes they are intended to deliver. This article argues that the absence of systematic soil health monitoring represents a critical measurement gap in CSA, limiting the ability to verify whether interventions genuinely enhance resilience, contribute to adaptation and mitigation, and sustain productivity. Drawing on two decades of research, we show that soil health underpins all three CSA objectives – adaptation, mitigation and productivity – through its role in regulating water availability, nutrient cycling, carbon storage and biodiversity conservation. We propose scaling outcome-based monitoring to complement practice-based monitoring, positioning soil health as an integrating metric that aligns climate, land degradation and biodiversity agendas. Standardized landscape monitoring approaches, including repeated georeferenced measurements of soil health indicators through frameworks such as the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF), demonstrate that operationalisation is feasible and can generate longitudinal datasets. The recent embedding of soil health indicators within multi-level policy frameworks and reporting systems signals political support for implementing consistent soil health monitoring frameworks. Strengthening soil monitoring infrastructure is therefore essential for improving accountability, informing implementation and enabling performance-based climate finance.
Forest tenure and resource rights: emerging claims of local communities in the forest regions of Cameroon – ICRAF-RRI study report
Assessment of mangrove structures and biomass on islands along the Java Sea: a case study on Bawean Islands and Karimunjawa Islands
Mangroves on the islands along the Java Sea play a crucial role in supporting biodiversity, protecting coastlines, and sequestering carbon. However, there is a lack of information on mangrove structure and biomass in the area. This study aimed to assess the mangrove structures and biomass on Desa Daun, located on the Bawean Islands, and Kemujan Island, located on the Karimunjawa Islands, respectively. The study utilized a combination of line transect and quadrant plot methods with a size plot of 10×10 m. We established 7 line transects and 28 quadrant plots in the mangrove forest of Desa Daun and similarly set up 7 line transects and 21 quadrant plots on Kemujan Island. Within each quadrant, the mangrove species were identified, and their diameters at breast height (DBH) were recorded. To assess the relative significance of each species, the importance value index (IVI) was calculated, and allometric equations were applied to estimate biomass and carbon storage in the trees. PlanetScope imagery was also used to quantify the carbon stock of mangroves on those islands. In Desa Daun, 13 mangrove species were identified, while 12 species were recorded on Kemujan Island. The species Nypa fruticans and Excoecaria agallocha exhibited the highest IVI in Desa Daun and Kemujan Island, respectively. Notably, Rhizophora apiculata demonstrated the greatest biomass in both locations, with measurements of 43.08 Mg B/ha in Desa Daun and 102.22 Mg B/ha in Kemujan Island. Overall, mangrove stands on Desa Daun stored biomass of 113.60 Mg B/ha and carbon of 50.98 Mg C/ha, whereas mangrove stands on Kemujan Island stored biomass of 295.04 Mg B/ha and carbon of 131.95 Mg C/ha. Mangrove stands of the whole Bawean Islands sequestered 22,941 Mg C, while Karimunjawa Islands hold much higher C stocks, 79,451 Mg C. Despite being smaller in size, the Karimunjawa Islands have more extensive mangrove coverage compared to the Bawean Islands due to their geomorphological characteristics, which in turn influence their mangrove structures and carbon stocks. However, the loss of mangroves in the Karimunjawa Islands due to aquaculture expansions could increase carbon loss in the islands.
Taking Stock of Carbon Rights in REDD+ Candidate Countries: Concept Meets Reality
In the discourses on who should benefit from national REDD+ implementation, rights-based approaches are prominent across various countries. Options on how to create viable property rights arrangements are currently being debated by scholars, policy makers and practitioners alike. Many REDD+ advocates argue that assigning carbon rights represents a solution to insecure individual and community property rights. But carbon rights, i.e., the bundle of legal rights to carbon sequestered in biomass, present their own set of theoretical and practical challenges. We assess the status and approaches chosen in emerging carbon-rights legislations in five REDD+ countries based on a literature review and country expert knowledge: Peru, Brazil, Cameroon, Vietnam and Indonesia. We find that most countries assessed have not yet made final decisions as to the type of benefit sharing mechanisms they intend to implement and that there is a lack of clarity about who owns rights to carbon as a property and who is entitled to receive benefits. However, there is a trend of linking carbon rights to land rights. As such, the technical and also political challenges that land tenure clarification has faced over the past decades will still need to be addressed in the context of carbon rights.