Blue Carbon: Several key coastal habitats such as mangroves, salt marshes and sea
grass meadows have been found to fix carbon at a much higher rate per unit area
than land based systems and be more effective at the long-term sequestration of
carbon than terrestrial forest ecosystems13
. Mangroves have been reduced to 30-
50% of their historical cover and 29% of seagrass habitats are estimated to have
been lost in the last 150 years14
. This carbon sequestration role re-emphasizes the
importance of maintaining, and where possible rehabilitating, such ecosystems as an
opportunity for ecosystem climate mitigation and to also including them in carbon
trading mechanisms.
The Blue Economy approach will set in place the policies, legislation, infrastructure and
incentives to facilitate the transition to a low carbon economy utilising all the tools at its
disposal including the ocean’s enormous potential for renewable energy (wind, wave, tidal,
thermal and biomass) generation.