This week, leaders from greater than 20 nations met in Lisbon, Portugal, at the UN Ocean Conference to deal with what UN Secretary Basic António Guterres has declared an “ocean emergency.”
With the world’s oceans turning into hotter and extra acidic, the time to show the tide is dwindling. The convention offered a worldwide platform for nations to map out a plan for bettering ocean well being — with a number of governments and organizations sharing methods that might make an enormous splash.
Listed here are some bulletins you may have missed from the 2022 UN Ocean Conference.
1. A Spain-sized marine protected space will get a serious increase
In a bid to guard a few of Earth’s most original species — and fight local weather change — Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama dedicated in November 2021 to develop and be a part of their Pacific marine reserves, creating an interconnected “safe swimway” that will probably be off-limits to industrial fishing fleets. The reserve spans greater than 500,000 sq. kilometers (193,000 sq. miles) of ocean — an space barely bigger than Spain.
The funding, offered by a coalition of governments and non-governmental organizations — together with the Bezos Earth Fund and the Blue Nature Alliance, co-lead by Conservation Worldwide — will assist defend the habitats of sharks, whales, sea turtles and different marine life. The “swimway” is a part of the Jap Tropical Marine Hall, a large community of marine protected areas created by the 4 Latin American nations practically 20 years in the past to raised handle the oceans they rely upon.
“Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Panama have been showing the world what ocean conservation leadership looks like,” stated Conservation Worldwide CEO M. Sanjayan. “This is exactly how we save the nature humanity depends on: through collective global action from countries, communities, and the public and philanthropic sectors.”
As a part of its “Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape” program, Conservation Worldwide has helped set up marine protected areas (MPAs) throughout these nations since 2004. In areas that lie outdoors the MPAs, Conservation Worldwide works with native communities in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama to assist implement sustainable fishing practices, equivalent to solely permitting sure gear and releasing juvenile fish again into the ocean to allow them to reproduce.
“It’s not about going in and telling a nation or community what they need; it is about bringing everyone together to find a shared vision for protecting and managing the ocean they depend on,” Shannon Murphy, supervisor of the seascapes program at Conservation Worldwide, advised Conservation Information.
“If we care for our oceans, our oceans will care for us.”
2. “Blue carbon” surfaces as a major climate solution
Hugging coastlines throughout the tropics, mangroves are climate superstars. In a single square mile, their dense tangle of roots can stash away as much climate-warming carbon as the annual emissions of 90,000 cars.
Often overlooked as a climate solution, “blue carbon” — that is, the carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems — took center stage at this year’s oceans conference in Lisbon.
As part of the “UN Decade of Ocean Science,” the UK government announced a partnership with the University of St Andrews, the Scottish Government and Conservation International to boost research on blue carbon ecosystems — and how to protect them.
“In the fight to stop climate breakdown, countries are starting to realize the importance of ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrasses and tidal marshlands that are rich in blue carbon,” said Emily Pidgeon, the vice president of ocean science at Conservation International.
“The fact that blue carbon was front and center at the ocean conference in Lisbon is evidence that it’s being recognized as a powerful climate solution. Now, countries must take concrete actions to protect these ecosystems — there isn’t a minute to waste.”
One of these actions includes the sale of blue carbon credits, which represent a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in one place to compensate for emissions made somewhere else.
Last year, a mangrove challenge on Colombia’s Caribbean coast — developed by Conservation Worldwide, the Colombian authorities and different companions — turned the first to enter the carbon market — with absolutely verified blue carbon credits. The project’s 11,000-hectare (27,000-acre) mangrove forest in Cispatá Bay is expected to sequester nearly 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over its 30-year lifespan — roughly equivalent to taking 184,000 cars off the road for one year.
And this project has already seen success in the global carbon market: According to a recent report, 100 percent of the project’s available carbon credits have been sold or are currently in the process of being traded.
A full 92 percent of the funds generated from these sales will be invested back into the project’s conservation management plan — generating a reliable source of financing to protect the mangroves and support the communities that rely on them.
The project is expected to issue a new round of carbon credits in 2023 and the Colombian government is seeking to replicate this successful flagship initiative in six other locations along the Caribbean coast — scaling it up into a national program and bringing the concept of market-driven conservation to new areas.
“Around the world, demand for blue carbon outweighs the supply quite significantly,” said Jennifer Howard, who leads Conservation International’s blue carbon program. “The results from our work in Cispatá will offer important proof of concept, which is needed to build investor confidence and demonstrates the value of high-quality blue carbon offsets.”
3. Small Pacific Island makes a big splash for ocean conservation
In a landmark decision announced on Thursday, Fiji committed to protecting more than 8 percent of its waters by 2024.
This commitment contributes to a global push to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030 — which scientists say is necessary to limit the impacts of climate change on our oceans.
Just as important as how much ocean the Fijian government protects is where they are protecting it: The new MPA will span across the entirety of the Lau seascape, a thriving archipelago filled with coral reef systems that teem with fish, whales and manta rays.
“The Lau seascape is the most remote island group in Fiji, home to remarkable biodiversity and stunning ecosystems that provide food, cultural value, and livelihoods for its 9,600 inhabitants,” said Susana Waqainabete-Tuisese, Conservation International’s senior director of the Pacific region.
With support from the Fijian Government, Lau’s traditional leaders launched a plan in 2019 alongside Conservation International and partners to conserve their ocean as a “seascape,” using different conservation techniques to balance marine protection and production.
“Facing immense threats to their environment and culture that mirror challenges across the world, the customary leaders of Lau, with support from the government and partners, have committed to protect their ocean home for current and future generations,” Waqainabete-Tuisese.
“We will be virtually single-use plastic free and recycle all PET bottles; ocean literacy will be mandatory within our education system and we’ll lower carbon emissions in our shipping sector by 40 percent,” he told world leaders in Lisbon. “By 2030, we will produce at least 160,000 metric tons of sustainably farmed and harvested ocean product, supporting 53,000 new jobs on the way to supply half of our blue foods from sustainable fisheries by 2035.”
4. Indonesian province provides ‘a model’ for ocean conservation
Battered by overfishing, climate change and pollution, the world’s coral reefs are struggling to survive.
But there are a few bright spots, including a pristine archipelago within eastern Indonesia’s Bird’s Head Seascape, known as Raja Ampat.
Stretching over a 50,000 square kilometer (19,300 square mile) area, Raja Ampat’s network of seven large marine parks are brimming with reef fishes, corals and crustaceans found nowhere else on the planet, including Papuan garden eels, mantis shrimp and two species of walking sharks.
On Friday at the UN Ocean Conference, the nonprofit Marine Conservation Institute gave credit score the place it’s due by awarding the Raja Ampat Islands Marine Conservation Space the prestigious gold-level Blue Park Award for distinctive marine wildlife conservation.
Kiley Value is the employees author and information editor at Conservation Worldwide. Wish to learn extra tales like this? Join electronic mail updates right here. Donate to Conservation Worldwide right here.
Cowl picture: Cocos Island Nationwide Park, in Costa Rica, a part of the Jap Tropical Pacific Seascape (© Conservation Worldwide/picture by Mónika Naranjo González)
