Please invest in Our Daily Planet today, by making a one time or monthly contribution.
We do not charge our readers a subscription fee for our content. We want to continue to grow our readership, particularly among millennials and public servants. Voluntary contributions from readers will help us employ interns and freelance journalists, expand our content, and reach a larger audience.
If you make a contribution of $150 or more, you will become an official “Friend of the Planet” and receive a Friend of the Planet T-shirt or water bottle.
Our Daily Planet is a daily morning email (M-F) to keep you informed of the stories shaping our environment. If these issues matter to you, we’d like to be the best ten minutes of your morning.
In Cispatá on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, scientists have calculated just how much carbon a mangrove forest stores. Up until now, that number has treated mangroves like trees on land — missing more than half of their carbon store in the soil under trees. The calculation in Cispatá estimates the mangroves will remove about 1 million metric tons of emissions over the next 30 years. Just as important as the calculation is how it will be used: local communities worked with Conservation International and Colombian environmental authorities (with funding from Apple) to bring this mangrove forest onto the carbon market. The money from selling carbon credits will go toward protecting and restoring the mangroves as well as local education, employment and sustainable livelihood opportunities, according to Conservation International.
Why This Matters: The Cispatá mangroves, like others worldwide, support a variety of plant and animal species, provide protection from storm surges, and are a source of food and livelihoods for the community. For mangroves, which are one of the most threatened habitats in the world, both the community-driven method and the full calculation of their carbon potential could be a new model for protection.
“After many years of training, education, and working together, these communities now have a full appreciation that keeping the mangrove forest healthy is in their own best interest, and in the best interest of their children and grandchildren,” marine biologist María Claudia Díazgranados Cadelo, who led the development of the project and its community engagement, told Our Daily Planet. “That is why they decided to name the project ‘Vida Manglar,’ indicating that mangroves are their entire life.”
Community Involvement from the Beginning: The Cispatá project started when the Colombian Environmental Authority reached out to community leaders who were surviving by logging mangroves and worked with them to develop “Mangleros” — community-based associations that committed to the protection and sustainable management of the mangroves.
“it is important to note that in Colombia – as in many parts of the developing world – environmental authorities don’t have enough funding to truly protect declared protected areas,” Díazgranados said. The resulting project, which uses the sale of carbon credits to fund that protection, helps keep power in the local community while “contributing to the protection of the high conservation values of the community and biodiversity,” Díazgranados said.
Blue Carbon: Sequestering “blue carbon” is crucial for nations to meet their climate and conservation goals because aquatic ecosystems are exceptionally adept at storing carbon. As such, blue carbon credits can also become meaningful tools to work with indigenous communities to protect some of Earth’s most precious ecosystems. As Lisa Jackson, Apple’s Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives explained,
“In partnership with Conservation International and indigenous communities in Colombia, we’re excited to carry forward our fight against climate change, find innovative ways to measure the ‘blue carbon’ we remove from our atmosphere, and create pathways for other businesses to join Apple in our work to become 100% carbon neutral.”
UNESCO has launched a new program to collect, analyze, and monitor environmental DNA (AKA eDNA) to better understand biodiversity at its marine World Heritage sites. Scientists will collect genetic material from fish cells, mucus, and waste across multiple locations along with eDNA from soil, water, and air. The two-year project will help experts assess […]
It’s about time we had a conversation about the birds and the bees…or in this case, the otters and the seagrass. A new study found that the ecological relationship between sea otters and the seagrass fields where they make their home is spurring the rapid reproduction of the plants. Otters dig up about 5% of […]
By Amy Lupica, ODP Daily Editor An abandoned oil tanker off the coast of Yemen is deteriorating rapidly, and experts say that a hull breach could have far-reaching environmental impacts and threaten millions of people’s access to food and water supplies. The FSO SAFER tanker holds 1.1 million barrels of oil — more than four […]
Subscribe to the email that top lawmakers, renowned scientists, and thousands of concerned citizens turn to each morning for the latest environmental news and analysis.
Want the lastest climate news summarized for you each morning?
Our Daily Planet is your daily dose of the stories shaping our world and the ways that you can take action. From the climate crisis to the protection of biodiversity, if these issues matter to you then please subscribe & stay informed!
Your privacy is Important! We promise never to use your email address to send you spam or advertisements.