Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / Protecting Blue Carbon Ecosystems: A Global Perspective

Transcript

Protecting Blue Carbon Ecosystems: A Global Perspective · How To Protect The Ocean

0:00
You know what I always wonder? I always wonder how we're doing in. climate
0:04
change. Like, how are we reducing climate change? What projects are out
0:08
there? We hear all about these global initiatives, and
0:11
the Paris Accord Agreement, and the
0:14
Convention for Biological Diversity, and protecting biodiversity,
0:18
and all these countries signing on. And then we see all these
0:23
ocean decade, and 30 by 30 we have to protect the ocean and
0:26
land, 30% of the ocean and land. We always hear about these international agreements,
0:30
but what's actually happening? What's actually happening? How does that transfer to
0:33
on the ground action. Well, I have
0:37
Emily Kelly as my guest today. She is part of the Blue Carbon
0:40
Action Network from the World Economic Forum, and she's
0:44
here to talk about that very same thing, is
0:47
how they're putting together restoration and
0:51
blue action projects for blue carbon. So
0:54
that could be restoring mangroves, that could be restoring
0:58
salt marshes, that could be restoring seagrasses, or even
1:02
just supporting projects that take ocean
1:05
and coastal areas and generate that into something
1:09
that the community can benefit from. It's a very human-centric
1:13
project and it's global, but it also has some national and
1:17
local ramifications, which is just amazing to
1:20
see and we're gonna hear all about it from Emily Kelly. So we're
1:24
gonna talk about all of this on this episode of the
1:27
How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey
1:34
everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
1:38
I am your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with
1:41
the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a
1:44
better ocean by taking action. And on today's episode,
1:48
we're going to be talking about action-taking from a global, national,
1:52
and local level. We're going to be talking about international agreements,
1:56
like the Paris Accord agreement. We're going to be talking about biodiversity and
1:59
how to protect biodiversity. And we're going to be really focusing in
2:03
on specific habitats that are known as
2:06
blue carbon habitats, seagrass beds, salt
2:10
marshes, mangroves. These are all areas that are
2:14
being looked at as sort of being able to sort
2:17
of take in carbon and sequester carbon, but also
2:21
have these co-benefits, you know, where they can provide a
2:25
haven as a nursery habitat, they can protect young species, they
2:29
can have a lot of, they have a lot of biodiversity, they can
2:33
have shoreline protection. But then they also look,
2:36
these action plans and these partnerships also look
2:40
at how to fund these projects, how to make
2:43
it sure that they're focusing in on the core
2:47
benefits, not the co-benefits, which I just talked about, but the core benefits of
2:51
how is it gonna benefit the community? How is it going to financially
2:56
stabilize the community? How is it going to make sure that
2:59
people in households all have roles to play?
3:03
Everything like that, you know, all around the world, in the Philippines, in
3:06
Indonesia, in Latin America, all over the place, we're
3:10
going to be talking about projects that are going to be either going on or
3:14
are going to be talked about in the future and going to happen in the future. We're going
3:17
to talk about how that's all set up. As a scientist,
3:20
it's easy to say, hey, let's just restore this one
3:24
area or these areas because that makes sense. There's a
3:27
lot of co-benefits. There's a lot of core benefits that get that
3:31
all get sort of satisfied, right?
3:34
And we start to see success. But there's a lot of policy involved in
3:38
that. There's a lot of stakeholder meetings. There's a lot of stuff that goes on. It's never an easy
3:41
project, and hence why it's been so difficult to put those
3:44
in very quickly. And so we're going to talk
3:48
about how that's all played together. Emily Kelly, who works
3:52
for the Blue Carbon Action Partnership,
3:56
BCAP, part of the World Economic Forum, And she's
4:00
here to talk about all these projects and how they all work
4:03
and how they're all proposed and how, you know, the corporate partnerships
4:07
happen and what they like to do and why they're part of this and,
4:10
you know, talking about net and nature positive investments and
4:14
so forth. So there's a lot of stuff that we go over. And
4:17
I would love, you know, for you, I can't wait for you to hear this
4:20
interview, but also ask questions after because I would love to get Emily back
4:24
on and be able to ask more questions. And you can contact me. Just
4:27
wait till the end of the interview and you can figure out how to contact me then.
4:31
But here is the interview with Emily Kelly from the Blue Carbon Action Partnership.
4:37
And from the Blue Action. And here
4:40
is Emily Kelly from the Blue Action And
4:43
here is Emily Kelly from the Blue Carbon Action Partnership talking
4:48
about the organization and what they do. Enjoy the
4:51
interview, and I'll talk to you after. Hey, Emily, welcome to
4:54
the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about the Blue
5:02
No problem. I'm super excited for this because it's not often we get somebody
5:05
on the podcast to talk about blue carbon. And I think it's such an
5:09
important topic that always flies under the radar.
5:12
And I know there's reasons for it sometimes because it's not always
5:17
like the sexy news. Like, you know, sometimes you get shark news or marine mammal
5:20
news, there's things like that, but it's so important to conservation, especially in
5:24
the situation that we are as a planet, you know, in
5:27
terms of climate change and things like that. We need to change and blue carbon are
5:31
one of those topics that we need to talk more about. So I'm excited to
5:34
do that. We're going to be talking about the organization you
5:38
work with, the Blue Carbon Action Partnership. We're going to talk about what
5:41
you guys do and all those things. It's going to be a lot of fun. But
5:44
before we get into all of that, Emily, why don't you just let us know who you
5:50
Yeah, thanks, Andrew. And also on the sharks and all those other super
5:54
charismatic animals, they rely on some of these ecosystems, these
5:57
blue carbon ecosystems. So excited to talk more about that. Absolutely. Yeah,
6:00
so I am leading our Blue Carbon Action
6:04
Partnership. It's an initiative run out of the World Economic Forum funded
6:08
through the UK's Blue Planet Fund. We launched in 2023. And
6:14
my background is in marine ecology, actually. Prior
6:18
to joining the World Economic Forum, I did
6:22
a couple of postdocs. Previous to that, I did my PhD at
6:26
Scripps Institution of Oceanography and came to that through
6:30
sort of multiple different steps previous to that, but worked
6:33
for the U.S. government briefly as a fellow, did
6:37
a master's focused on prairie chickens in New Mexico and
6:40
how people make decisions about environmental debates.
6:45
So, yeah, so spent a few some time in different spaces, hung
6:49
out in Antarctica for a little bit. So really, really
6:53
happy to be working in blue carbon ecosystems right now, where some
6:58
of my heart really lies in photosynthetic organisms, just
7:02
to be extra nerdy about it. And, and
7:07
things that fix carbon. So yeah, coming
7:11
from a science, natural science background, and then moving into the policy with
7:18
Awesome. One of the things I'm always interested is when I'm talking to
7:21
people about their careers is, you know, you obviously you've had a
7:25
very variety based diverse background
7:29
in terms of the projects you've been able to work on. What's driven
7:33
you throughout each of those projects? Like why take a
7:36
master's studying prairie chickens? Why do you work in
7:39
Antarctica? I mean, obviously just to go to Antarctica is enough, but
7:42
like what drove you to make those decisions and be like, this
7:46
is the project that I want to go for. That's,
7:52
I mean, I think like, I mean, I love, listening
7:55
to some of your other guests. And like many people, I think
7:59
it's sort of what opportunity lies ahead that you feel
8:03
like you can be helpful in. And so I think that's
8:06
sort of where I've and where you've had the opportunity and
8:10
the good fortune of finding yourself. So I think that's sort of how
8:13
I've landed in all these different spaces. Certainly,
8:17
I mean, I'm just super driven by a passion for the ocean. And
8:20
I think, as you may relate to,
8:24
and I think, and so it's
8:27
always been really exciting to make connections with
8:30
the ocean, with kind of everything else
8:34
that happens on our planet. I love thinking about, for
8:37
example, the sustainable development goals and how
8:40
we think about where we want to go by 2030. And
8:45
if you look at those sustainable development goals, Obviously
8:48
there's one specific to the ocean, SDG 14, but
8:51
there are lots of them that every single
8:55
sustainable development goal touches on the ocean if you think about coastal communities. So
8:58
if you think about food security, nutrition, poverty
9:02
alleviation, all these things. And so I think it's really exciting to get to
9:07
share with others the power of the ocean and what a healthy ocean
9:13
Yeah. And now speaking of globally, you know, it's, you
9:17
know, this is a pretty big project, you know, when you, when you look at the scope of,
9:20
of everything, um, when you, how
9:24
long have you been with, with, uh, this, this
9:27
organization, like, and, and, and how long you've been working on this project and what made
9:31
you decide this, like, this is where I'm going to
9:35
So at the World Economic Forum, we work on public-private partnerships.
9:39
So how can we get governments and corporations
9:44
and many other stakeholders together to help tackle big
9:47
challenges? And for
9:51
the blue carbon space, we were hearing more and more, particularly from
9:54
our corporate partners, that they're really interested in thinking about blue carbon, either
10:00
from a nature positive perspective or from a carbon credit perspective.
10:03
And we can talk a lot more about those pieces.
10:09
And they were interested in understanding a little bit more about what would it mean to invest in mangroves. And
10:13
we collaborate with our colleagues at the
10:16
1T.org, which is the Forum's Trillion Trees Initiative, looking to conserve,
10:20
restore, and grow one trillion trees by 2030. It's part of
10:23
the UN decade for ecosystem restoration. And
10:28
from within that, you know, could there be
10:31
something where we could be supportive? And so we started thinking a little bit more about
10:35
that. And from that, we, the
10:38
mangroves working group was born, which is a collaboration between our ocean
10:42
team and our 1T colleagues and helping our corporates
10:46
better understand how they can connect with high
10:49
quality projects, learn from one another in investment in mangroves. And
10:53
then we also thought from the forum side, you know, how could
10:56
we be supportive of governments? Because what we're really hearing is that governments are
11:00
super interested in being involved more in blue carbon.
11:04
But they're looking for how to do it in a way
11:07
that connects all the pieces that they have ongoing. Blue
11:11
carbon ecosystems, maybe taking a moment to back up to
11:15
just explain how it can be complex from the policy side.
11:19
We're primarily talking about mangroves, seagrasses, and
11:23
salt marshes. And these are super
11:26
cross-jurisdictional. when
11:30
you're thinking about governments, there are multiple ministries often
11:33
that are in charge of these different resources in different ways.
11:37
So it might be they're a tree in the case of mangroves, but
11:41
they're also in a coastal area and they may be in
11:45
seagrasses or below water. And so those are often part of a
11:49
fisheries ministry, for example. So there are a bunch of different
11:53
ministries that are often involved. How can we think
11:56
about supporting governments and connecting all these pieces? And
12:00
then how can we also link what's happening in
12:03
the policy side and get additional investment
12:06
into those ecosystems? And that's where we thought our corporates would be really interested in
12:10
playing a role. So putting all those pieces together is really the
12:13
genesis for why we thought, where can the forum and
12:17
the Blue Carbon Action Partnership serve a purpose in connecting the
12:20
dots and being a platform for helping
12:24
to provide additional resources
12:29
as governments are working on this and then connecting it to these global conversations
12:33
Gotcha. I have a question in terms of when you've mentioned it a couple
12:37
times sort of the corporate sponsors and your corporate partners. We
12:41
often see in the space of conservation and restoration
12:45
that there are partners, there are a lot of times foundations, there
12:48
are granting agencies, government will provide money a lot
12:52
of the times through their own programs. How
12:56
does it work with corporate partners? When
12:59
they talk about investing into, say, a mangrove restoration
13:03
or a conservation, how does that all come to
13:09
So we work with a number of
13:13
corporations that work with
13:16
the World Economic Forum. And they
13:21
are interested in thinking, how can
13:24
we invest. It might be for nature
13:29
positive investment. It might be thinking about
13:33
their net zero goals. It
13:37
could be related to any other sort of
13:41
like broader environment sustainability
13:46
goal that they may have. We are, they're not,
13:50
they are acting with their own they're
13:54
acting independently of us, but they're looking to get
13:57
guidance, support, connections from us.
14:01
And so that's really where the excitement lies is, you know,
14:05
as we have corporates thinking about wanting
14:08
to invest, they're really looking for how to do so in a really high quality way.
14:12
And I'll say that's what's so exciting is I think
14:16
there's a real push for thinking
14:20
about high quality investment, thinking about how to
14:23
do, I mean, no one wants an article written about them,
14:28
about greenwashing. So how
14:31
can, how can they be looking to, how can they
14:34
make the best connections to invest in ways that are of
14:38
the highest quality? And, you know, an exciting part of that too,
14:41
is that was some of the initial conversation that came out
14:44
of the Mangroves Working Group was, you know, what
14:48
could be, what is high quality in this space? That was questions that we
14:51
were getting. And so from that came a really cool
14:54
process of a number of different organizations and
14:58
a global, a
15:02
global collaborative effort with feedback from
15:06
a number of different open workshops that
15:09
created the high quality blue carbon principles and guidance, which is right. the
15:15
sort of overarching guidance that says, here's what high quality
15:18
means. And that involves ensuring free and
15:21
informed consent with communities, looking
15:25
at understanding context, a high
15:28
quality investment. So there are a number of different pieces that we
15:32
can now say, okay, if you want to invest in a high quality way, here are ways to do
15:36
that. And very excitingly, some of the partners involved
15:39
are leading the way right now in creating a
15:42
practitioner's guide for this for what does that mean in detail. So that's
15:47
That's so interesting. So you know, when you hear all these companies come up, like, they
15:51
have their company and they have their corporation, they get their revenue, however,
15:55
which way whatever corporation they are, and then they design
15:59
because they want to be they want to, you know, they want to have that outlook on
16:02
where people can just be like, hey, this company is doing some great things with
16:06
their they've come up with these policies and these values where
16:10
they want to give back to nature, they want to make sure that nature is
16:14
there and they want to help reduce climate change. So they want to
16:17
look around and invest in something like you mentioned before that would
16:20
be nature positive. So when they invest in a mangrove restoration
16:25
or invest in a particular area, does that mean
16:28
like you know, they're not looking for a return on
16:32
investment. The only return on investment is like that, that, that
16:35
the mangrove area that they've invested in, that
16:38
they've helped supply money to do the restoration is blooming and it's doing
16:42
really well. So they're looking for these guidance principles to make
16:45
sure that they're doing the best work that they could be doing, or they're investing their
16:48
money in the best work that they can be doing. Is that, do I have that, that,
16:56
This is a great preview to some work that we're doing right now, in fact, which is
16:59
really, really to, there's
17:04
been a bunch of work to really understand, okay, what
17:08
are the opportunities for corporate players in investing? And I'll say
17:11
also that all the work that we're doing is also supporting
17:15
a global movement called the Mangrove Breakthrough, which is a
17:18
collaborative effort between the UN high-level
17:22
champions, climate high-level champions, and
17:27
the Global Mangrove Alliance. All of that work is really trying to
17:32
really unpack. They've started this process where they're looking at
17:36
different types of investment models. From our side, we're trying to
17:39
think about what are the economics for investing in blue carbon ecosystems?
17:43
And so I will say that there are a bunch of different opportunities. So
17:47
it could be that your founder and CEO, like Salesforce
17:51
and Marc Benioff, is very passionate about the ocean. And so they have commitments
17:55
for what they want to do in terms of planting
17:59
trees and also for their net zero goals. Or it could
18:02
be that you are a company like Iberostar, which
18:05
is a hotel chain that is intimately connected with
18:09
its surrounding ecosystems and works very closely on thinking
18:13
about its sustainability goals, because it's, of course, very
18:16
well connected. Within their business model. So
18:19
they're there. Those are sort of two sides of This
18:23
conversation and there's a lot that's in between and we're working on unpacking a
18:30
I love that. I love seeing that I just, I
18:34
love seeing these types of projects kind of come to play, you know, and,
18:37
and because they're so important and you need to start shaping all
18:41
of these guidelines and, and, and
18:44
things that, that all come into play to make sure that these investments go and seeing these
18:48
corporations get excited about this because they're, they're not just investing blindly,
18:53
they're investing into, into projects that have, you know, a
18:56
good success rate or potential for a great success rate and I think that's, That's
19:00
that's really really important when when you see it.
19:03
So I Love that. I love that aspect Can
19:07
we talk about like maybe you mentioned literally like there's a couple projects that you're
19:10
thinking about and stuff Like are there ongoing like when
19:13
you guys do the guidelines and then the corporations like look at
19:17
like the partners look at this Are there do
19:20
you? Sort of recommend specific projects
19:23
that are going on. Like do you have other partners on the ground who are doing
19:28
Totally. I mean, I will say also, again, our role we see
19:32
as really connecting a bunch of different pieces and there's so
19:35
much amazing work that colleagues are doing in Blue Carbon and
19:39
have been doing for a very long time. I mean, Blue Carbon, a
19:42
broader sort of excitement about Blue Carbon has
19:45
really just been the last less than
19:49
10 years, maybe five years of a lot of excitement.
19:53
And so I think, yes, so we're very happy to be making a lot of connections. So
19:58
we work a lot. I mentioned the Global Mangrove Alliance. We work with
20:01
those partners, which is a group of NGOs
20:05
that have all come together to really be incredibly impactful in
20:08
the way that they coordinate across all the work that they're doing in
20:12
mangroves, which of course is one of the blue carbon ecosystems that we
20:16
know the most about. Or we
20:19
spend the most time, I guess, in figuring out how
20:22
to be very specific in carbon accounting,
20:26
for example, but also in restoration conservation more broadly. And then
20:31
we work with a bunch of innovators across the world. The
20:34
Forum also has a platform for innovation called Uplink, and
20:37
some of our Uplink Ocean innovators have been, are really
20:42
doing amazing things in the blue carbon space. So thinking
20:46
about how they can leverage technology for
20:49
this space, but also very deeply connecting with
20:53
communities. So thinking about one distant
20:57
imagery, for example, which is an innovator out of the out of UAE,
21:01
working on planting mangroves using drones. But the
21:05
really cool part of it is connecting with communities
21:08
very deeply about their goals, their interests, and working
21:12
globally now with them. And they build those drones out of pieces that
21:15
can be very easily fixed in
21:19
within the community. So super cool, very impactful
21:23
Can I just tell you something that's kind of interesting? So my daughter, she
21:27
was in grade 10 a couple years ago. She's a senior
21:31
right now. But she looked at that. She
21:34
had to build the drone. They're in an iSTEM program. And one
21:37
of their projects was building a drone to do something for
21:40
climate change. And so a lot of people were building on the land drones
21:44
to do regular tree planting, like on land tree planting. And
21:48
I told my daughter, I'm like, you should look at something different. Like
21:51
what about coastal? And obviously I'm an ocean guy and she
21:55
wants to be a zoologist. And I said, have you thought about like, what about flying drones? Can
21:58
you do that? And we picked up the UAE project. Like we did
22:01
a search, looked up the UAE project and she used
22:04
that as a model to do her drone prototype. And
22:08
we use it for that. So for mangrove planting. Yeah, that
22:12
we're looking at like, and it was interesting because like you're looking at like, like dispersal
22:16
of seeds and how much that weighs. And you know, you have to it's
22:19
it was it wasn't an easy project to do like to do those prototypes, but
22:23
to see how You know, quickly the sort
22:27
of just drones have like that technology has evolved
22:32
so quickly to be able to use like different parts. And
22:36
you know, it doesn't have to be a $100,000 machine.
22:40
You know, it could be a $2,000 machine or less and be
22:43
able to hold that payload to be able to disperse those seeds. So
22:47
yeah, it was really exciting. Sorry, I just wanted to let you know I got excited about
22:51
Oh my gosh. Oh, I'm so excited to hear
22:55
about that connection. That's so fun. And yeah, I mean, I think the
22:58
other cool part about drones, for example, is, you know, being able
23:01
to better understand the, um, the landscape. So
23:05
you can understand what, what does drainage look like here? Like, you
23:09
know, there are a bunch of different ways that the drone can be helpful, which is cool. Um,
23:13
I think, I mean, I think the key thing too is, of course, this isn't really a
23:17
tech challenge. This is a people challenge, of
23:20
course, but how can you be using technology
23:24
to be supportive? So it's super cool. And what
23:27
I love about them is that they're so engaged in the community. So, I mean,
23:30
I think they're such a poster child for how wonderful you
23:34
can be in engaging at a community level and then
23:42
Yeah. And so I think, you know, connecting with these sorts of partners is
23:45
really powerful. And then the other piece that we
23:50
can, you know, unpack a little bit more potentially is just how we're connecting
23:53
with the governments. Because I think, again, where the
23:57
Blue Carbon Action Partnership, we
24:00
really think about working in sort of two different spaces,
24:04
one at a national level, for how we can support governments in
24:08
achieving their blue carbon ecosystem conservation and restoration ambitions.
24:12
And that that's purposely ambiguous what
24:15
ambitions means, because it could be anything. It could be engaging
24:20
with the voluntary carbon market. But really, it's it's
24:26
super a lot of focus right now on how to include
24:29
blue carbon ecosystems in their nationally determined contributions under the Paris
24:33
Agreement. So how how how are,
24:36
how is each government helping to achieve our global climate goals? And
24:40
blue carbon ecosystems are part of that. And then, you know,
24:43
there's also, um, everything that's we're thinking about
24:46
with our biodiversity goals as well. So this would
24:50
be a different treaty than our climate treaty, but our, um,
24:54
our biodiversity treaty and thinking, how do we achieve those goals?
24:57
And this is where these ecosystems come into play as well. And
25:01
then I think the key, you know, key
25:04
part is, and again, why this is often cross-ministerial
25:08
work, is that these are really important. These ecosystems are
25:12
really important to coastal communities. And so, you
25:15
know, when we're thinking about livelihoods, food security, fisheries,
25:21
fuel, all of those different pieces are important
25:25
to communities that live around blue carbon ecosystems. Yeah,
25:31
so there's a, there's a lot to consider on a policy level and how
25:35
governments can streamline and align those policies to
25:38
then say, okay. We're, we're sort of
25:41
more set up for thinking about what types of investment can come in and
25:49
It's so interesting because my science brain is going off and you're like, yeah, basically what
25:52
you're talking about is, you know, making sure that
25:56
we're putting in mangroves, seagrasses, salt marshes back
26:00
to where maybe they were taken away at one point or identifying areas
26:04
that may have changed where they could be. really helpful and
26:07
really good and have a great good chance of success so in
26:10
my brain like I'm like this is easy you just oh here's where we can put a
26:13
mangrove let's just you know plant them let's do it but then like the
26:17
conservation brain goes off and that's where policy comes into play and
26:20
like you said you're you're dealing with You know, this is a global effort.
26:24
So you're talking about here are the global and international
26:27
treaties that where these all fall under. And
26:30
then you have to go to each government and look at their plans and
26:34
how, you know, how they're sort of adapting to these agreements
26:37
and their policies. And it really becomes this web,
26:41
you know, for each country's different, each country's unique, but not only within a
26:45
national sort of policy standpoint, but you're looking at even
26:49
deeper and even smaller scale to local levels, right?
26:53
Regional and then local level. So it can get really complex,
26:57
as you mentioned, you know, at that time. What are
27:00
the major challenges that, you
27:03
know, even like the Blue Action, the
27:06
Blue Carbon Action Plan face? or even like
27:10
the corporate partners face, even the government's face, like what are the major challenges that
27:13
you come up against that you have to overcome, I guess,
27:20
That's such a good point. I mean, I think that what you
27:23
just outlined is the first big challenge is just having all
27:27
stakeholders sitting around the table together. And that's that's
27:30
really our goal is supporting through local
27:34
partners. We work with local NGOs to partner
27:38
in each country, and they are a secretariat that
27:42
is the glue that helps to just
27:46
be additional human power in connecting all
27:50
the pieces. So right now we're partnering in Indonesia and
27:53
the Philippines, and we're looking to continue to grow in Southeast Asia, and
27:57
then thinking about additional partners in Latin America and Africa.
28:02
Right now, we're thrilled to be working So
28:06
far, Indonesia is our first partner, Philippines, our second partner, both
28:10
already have a lot that's happening in this space. And so how
28:14
do you help with coordinating and
28:17
connecting a bunch of pieces? And that's the work that
28:21
they are all doing internally. So again, these are country-driven National
28:25
Blue Carbon Action Partnerships. It is the
28:28
hard work of all of those that are in country that
28:32
is making all of this magic in-country surrounding
28:36
blue carbon happen. And that's making sure that you
28:40
have all of the relevant government partners in
28:43
the room, you have NGO partners that are doing a lot of the connecting with
28:47
communities, you have community leaders, you have those
28:51
from the corporate side, from finance, and all of them coming
28:54
into one space to say, okay, here are the big things we want to unpack, we
28:58
need to be thinking about. policy, and that's likely, you know,
29:02
much more of a ministerial driven process. And then you have a
29:06
finance task force, and that's focused on
29:09
once we better understand what the policy landscape is going to be, how do
29:13
we make sure that this is connecting to finance? The
29:16
core for all of this is creating a cohesive national
29:20
roadmap. And that roadmap then is
29:23
the vision that is set out by all those stakeholders to
29:27
say, okay, here's, we know this is where we want to go. And this is how
29:30
we want to get the finance to come in to support that as well. So that's
29:34
the, that's the ultimate goal, but it's also the challenges to
29:37
make all those pieces happen. But I will say, I mean, there's so much
29:41
excitement around this space and because these, these
29:44
ecosystems are such super ecosystems. I mean, mangroves, we
29:48
talk about the biodiversity a lot there. They
29:52
obviously are storing carbon. But again, the core benefits
29:56
of these ecosystems is really in supporting these
29:59
communities. And seagrasses are also,
30:03
as we know, fisheries, nursery
30:07
habitats, they're really important for a bunch of the species that
30:11
we might see in other ecosystems later, start out in seagrasses. Both
30:15
of those, as well as salt marshes, super important for
30:19
shoreline protection and for As we think about
30:23
climate change, also they help us with thinking about
30:27
how we adapt to climate change. So I think
30:32
for all of those different reasons, we have a lot of excitement and
30:38
Yeah, for sure. And one of the things that, you talk about shoreline security, one
30:41
of the things that always stands out, especially in those areas, that Southeast
30:45
Asia area, Indian Ocean area, one of the things
30:48
that always stands out was the report that the UN came out
30:52
with, I think it was UNEP, I'm not sure, but that came out with after the
30:55
2004 tsunami that occurred in that
30:59
area. And they said areas that had healthy
31:02
coral reefs, healthy seagrass beds, healthy mangroves did
31:06
better against the tsunami than areas that
31:10
didn't have, you know, they didn't have, like, in healthy ecosystems, like,
31:13
they either, you know, remove some mangroves or
31:17
remove, like, those kind of
31:20
habitats. So that always stands out for me. Like, that's so important, especially in
31:24
island nations, smaller island nations and things where you
31:27
get a lot of ocean and you just never know, especially during, with climate
31:31
change consequences, you know, sea level rise and storm surges
31:34
and storms in general. these habitats become very
31:38
important to these communities in many ways. And
31:41
then you talk about biodiversity, you know, protection. All those, all
31:45
those, all the like salt marshes, mangroves, seagrasses are huge for biodiversity protection
31:50
and conservation. So it's so important to have
31:53
all those. Now, we talk a lot about setting up these projects
31:57
and identifying where there's potential for these
32:01
projects to happen. And I'm sure you have a lot of the projects. Actually,
32:05
that's a good question. Do you have a lot of projects on the go now
32:08
that you're either involved or somewhat a
32:11
partner with as part of the action plan?
32:16
I'm sorry. So on the ground individual projects?
32:21
Yeah. So again, I think this is where we
32:24
are just thrilled to be partnering with wonderful organizations on
32:27
the ground that are doing exactly that work. And then we are
32:32
really happy to be connecting that with the broader discussion,
32:37
or rather to be facilitating where it's not already happening. But yeah,
32:42
so I mean, amazing project. So for example, the
32:47
Philippines, just the Philippine Space Agency just finalized
32:51
their mangrove mass um, their national map and
32:54
they did a bunch of that's cool. Okay. So fun.
32:57
So fun. And, um, and they, they
33:01
just re they just, um, formally, uh, uh,
33:06
launched it in July and they did a bunch of really
33:09
neat citizen science connecting with that. So using their, their
33:13
imagery, then connecting that with on the ground with local communities, um,
33:17
with NGOs, with academia. with government who is doing
33:21
all the ground truthing of their images and also doing
33:24
a bit more detail. So to understand
33:28
not just here's where we have mangroves, but also what
33:31
type of mangroves do we have in those places. So really neat
33:34
connections with citizen science there. And we're really excited to see how
33:38
that all came to be. And I think particularly, you know,
33:41
when you can be involving communities in the work that's happening at
33:45
such a national level, it's so exciting and really makes those connections so
33:48
real. Oh, for sure. And then there's a
33:52
lot of really neat work, again, in
33:55
the Philippines, thinking about what's going to happen with some of
33:58
the abandoned fish ponds that they have. It's coming from some
34:02
work that they've done in the past, where fish
34:05
ponds was a larger policy
34:10
in the 80s and 90s. And then some of those ponds are
34:14
no longer functional. And there's an opportunity to
34:17
think about if they could be restored to mangroves. And
34:21
so, wonderful organization, for example, Oceanus Conservation, who's
34:25
working very closely with communities and local governments
34:29
in thinking about how to do restoration there. And not just to do restoration
34:34
for some of these, you know, broader goals of
34:37
biodiversity and shoreline protection, but, and habitat
34:41
and those sorts of things. But thinking also, okay, so it
34:44
was a fish pond, we were thinking about food production with it,
34:48
how can that still be a place for food production? And so pairing that
34:52
restoration and conservation with a crab
34:55
fishery, for example, and working with communities and thinking about how
34:59
to create that in concert with planting mangroves. So
35:03
really, really exciting opportunities that exist there. We're
35:09
really excited to be partnering with Conservation
35:13
International in in Indonesia, and
35:17
they are working a lot, as you may know, on climate smart
35:21
shrimp. So there's a bunch of cool work,
35:25
I think, that's really thinking about these
35:28
broader benefits that we can, the
35:36
Oh, absolutely. It's so exciting. And just even just to think, like, an abandoned fish pond
35:39
for that local community must just be, you
35:43
know, they must look at it and just be like, we could do so much with that. And they just may
35:46
not have the resources at the time to be able to do that or
35:49
the time to be able to change that into, like what you mentioned,
35:53
a potential crab fishery or, you know, something different.
35:57
And so having that ability to regenerate that area into something that's more
36:00
productive is probably really helpful for that community and
36:03
brings a lot more excitement for that community. So I think that's,
36:07
I'd love to hear projects
36:11
like that. And, you know, we talk about, you mentioned earlier, you know, putting
36:15
the finance together and the plan together,
36:18
the action plan as you go through to restore specific areas
36:22
and sort of regenerate areas and
36:25
make it more productive for that local community, but also be
36:28
able to store more carbon and act in that
36:32
manner. There's got to be a plan
36:35
for the long term right like these are like essential like spatial plans
36:39
or business plans for the long term How
36:42
is that done in terms of one of trying to predict how
36:45
the project's gonna go? But also adapt to changes that
36:49
might happen in specific areas like local areas Is there are
36:53
there sort of plans being made to look ahead 10 5 10 15 years
36:58
That's such a good point. I mean, I think there's really important work also
37:02
that partners are doing and thinking about, okay, so we
37:07
know that we're thinking about these amazing ecosystems as nature-based
37:10
solutions for climate, for example, but
37:14
how are they responding to climate change and where will sea
37:17
level rise be and these other pieces and how will that impact the
37:21
longevity of a restoration site, for example? And
37:25
so I think, yeah, those are super important pieces. this
37:30
this is also if you're thinking about a carbon credit coming
37:33
into play this is also a super important space because you need to be
37:36
able to show that the carbon that you're saying is going to be stored in
37:39
a specific area is actually going to be stored there um for
37:44
30 years more yeah so um so that's
37:48
important in the calculation of all this and certainly has to
37:51
happen and has to happen in projects um and and
37:55
also um yeah there's just a
37:58
other elements that need to be considered in terms of like longer term
38:02
development plans and these sorts of things that might
38:06
impact an area. So in the work that we
38:10
are connecting with these governments on and with
38:13
these broader stakeholders, part of the roadmap process is
38:16
to be thinking holistically about all of this too. And I think that's where that
38:20
can be, that will be a really powerful piece of
38:24
the hard work that they're all doing is how
38:29
how do we think about all the different elements that come into play, not just these
38:33
are areas that are ripe for restoration or
38:36
we definitely want to conserve these, but also what is the broader plan for what we've considered
38:45
Okay. Okay. Really, really. That's super, super interesting. We've
38:49
talked a lot about, you know, the sort
38:53
of projects of where some of the projects are happening and sort
38:56
of that synergy between sort of the global efforts and the
39:00
local efforts and the national efforts. There's one thing that
39:03
a term that we discussed before the interview, like just when
39:06
we were planning out this interview, is that the core benefits versus
39:10
the co-benefits. And I would love for you to explain what those mean
39:14
and sort of how they play either against each other or for each
39:17
other when we talk about, you know, doing this Blue
39:22
Yeah, I think this is a really important sort of just
39:26
a slight adjustment to our language in
39:30
this that we see as really important. And this is coming out
39:33
of some really great work that colleagues have done and just
39:36
published on in terms of thinking. You know, we
39:42
talk about the sort of language to date has been these
39:46
are blue carbon ecosystems. We've sort of called them
39:50
this because they all share this superpower of sequestering
39:53
carbon if we give them that opportunity. But
39:58
really, the carbon piece of it is but
40:02
one of many of the reasons that we care about them. And
40:05
in fact, if you are living amongst these ecosystems, there
40:09
are these core benefits that you really care about. And they're
40:12
not really co-benefits like, oh, we love carbon and then we care about these
40:15
other things, they're co-benefits. The core benefits, in fact, are
40:19
the things that we have been chatting about already. really
40:22
caring about livelihoods, food security, also
40:27
thinking about the roles of different people in the household and, you
40:32
know, people going out and gleaning, particularly
40:36
often women who are collecting from these ecosystems and
40:39
adding to additional parts of the dinner plate
40:42
for their families. So there are these core benefits
40:46
that we, that are the centerpiece for these ecosystems. And
40:51
it just means that Taking a human centric
40:54
perspective in what these, these
40:58
ecosystems mean for their communities, local communities, indigenous peoples.
41:03
And and that's a centerpiece for how
41:07
high quality. Projects can be developed to whether those
41:10
are positive, or if they involve a carbon credit is
41:14
really thinking about the community leadership. And again, I will point to
41:17
the amazing. organizations that
41:21
we are happy to collaborate with that
41:25
do incredible work in really the
41:28
community leadership piece and connecting communities with the resources
41:32
they need to understand where they want to take
41:37
action and what they might want to be thinking about for planning for their ecosystems.
41:41
Just so super important for making sure that
41:45
we're doing well in how we think about our
41:53
I love that. I love that. I have a couple more questions before
41:57
we end this interview. This has been super, super informative. I'm
42:01
sure you and I can talk about this forever, but we do have, you
42:05
know, a show to do and to keep within a certain constraint, but
42:08
we'll love to have you back on, of course. You know, but
42:11
one thing that I always try to do is bring it back to the audience, right?
42:16
You know, this is, the podcast is called How to Protect the
42:19
Ocean. This is, you know, these types of projects, when
42:23
you get it so global, is very difficult for
42:26
people individually to be like, how can I contribute or how can I help
42:30
within this sort of context, right? And
42:33
so what would you suggest, as someone who's working and seeing all
42:37
the sort of the different drivers and all the different players that are in this,
42:41
How can people in my audience be able
42:45
to support or help or even find out more information?
42:48
It's like three really things that they can do to get
42:52
involved in some sort of way where they can help protect the ocean or even feel
43:00
Yeah, thanks, Andrew. And thinking
43:03
even about your recent podcast, as
43:06
we were talking about with the former mayor of Sausalito and thinking You
43:11
all talked about where we'd lost a lot of wetlands in California. I'm
43:16
sitting in California right now. And so I think one of those
43:19
pieces is, you know, just being aware of what's happening
43:23
with your local ecosystems and thinking
43:26
about, okay, there's a new development going in, they're planning for
43:29
a new development, for example, and being able to comment on
43:33
what land use change we're seeing, even
43:37
in our local communities for that is so, so important. These
43:41
ecosystems are amazing. They
43:44
can be super gooey. They can smell like rotten eggs. They
43:48
have super carbon-rich soil. If you were to be tromping
43:52
through them, your boot might get caught and you would end up face first
43:55
in mud. They're sort of amazing and
43:58
also not necessarily, you know, they don't have the
44:01
same charisma as a coral reef sometimes, depending.
44:07
But they're super important to how our coastlines work.
44:11
So even if you're not sitting in a place that's rich, like
44:16
mangroves out your front door or seagrass beds in front of
44:19
you, or even a salt marsh, and just
44:22
thinking about what's happening in your local community is so important for just
44:27
being active in taking control of what we're doing with our
44:30
own ecosystems nearby. And then I
44:33
would say also just giving them more attention and following more
44:37
of what's happening is really
44:40
helpful. And thinking about
44:44
how we're using our dollars as consumers in terms of the
44:47
types of companies that we purchase from. And I
44:52
guess related to that is also, I think I
44:56
really like to think a lot about ocean optimism and how
45:01
can we be celebrating successes and how can we
45:04
be rewarding behavior that we think is really uplifting
45:08
the ocean. And so I think that can go across so many different
45:11
spaces. So that could be, um, you know, investing
45:15
your tourism dollars in a place where you think that there's really excellent work
45:19
that's happening in blue carbon ecosystems. It could be purchasing,
45:23
um, purchasing your seafood in a way that, you know, is valuing
45:27
blue carbon ecosystems, um, valuing ecosystem
45:31
management more broadly. And, and, you know, engaging
45:34
with companies that you think are doing a good job, too. All of these things really
45:38
Yeah, absolutely. I think you're right. And one of the things
45:42
that really popped up that you mentioned is, you know, just
45:45
being active in your local area and finding out
45:48
sort of just natural areas and keeping them
45:52
natural, you know, wherever possible. You know, we talked a
45:55
lot about restoring mangroves and seagrasses and
45:59
salt marshes. At one point, you know, the world's
46:03
coastlines probably had, wherever there could be mangroves or seagrasses
46:06
or salt marshes, naturally there were. And a lot
46:10
of the times they were either taken out for building, you
46:13
know, sort of human-centric areas and we
46:17
lost a lot of those over time, and it's a
46:20
lot more expensive to put them back in than it is to take
46:23
them out, or it is to just conserve them. And so, where you see
46:26
mangroves, where you see or know of seagrasses, and
46:30
where you know salt marshes, do your best as a community to
46:34
keep them in place, and I think that's That's
46:37
really important. A lot of the times they sneak them in there. They sneak development in
46:40
there. And I mean, I'm not sure if you're aware, Emily, but by
46:44
the time this podcast airs, it
46:47
may be past the time, but we just did an episode a couple weeks
46:51
ago or so about the Florida State Parks and how they're trying to develop
46:55
golf courses and resorts on state parks in
46:59
Florida. And you're just like, these parks don't need that. They're
47:02
an attraction in itself and they're loved by Floridians. And
47:06
all of a sudden, just under the noses, they tried to get it
47:09
go. And you had the National Audubon Society and all these
47:12
other organizations that are, you know, making light of and
47:16
bringing awareness to these public commentaries where
47:19
you can actually have a say. And I think it's working because they've already
47:23
delayed at this point in time of this recording, they were delaying public
47:27
comment times and public meetings, because I think there's been a lot of people who
47:30
are like, no, we cannot, we cannot have this. So I think, like
47:34
you said, being aware of the areas of what's around
47:38
you in the areas and trying to protect those natural areas, I think is
47:41
really important. So that's a good way of, you know, we already have some
47:44
blue, you may have some blue carbon areas around you, you just don't even know it yet. So I
47:49
That's right. And I think public comment is such an
47:52
amazing tool that I don't know how, you
47:56
know, your neighbor may not be aware of public comment. So like, just
47:59
like chatting about it, if you have like a neighborhood gathering or
48:02
something like that, it's so powerful. Yeah, really amazing to
48:06
Absolutely. Emily, this has been absolutely fantastic to
48:10
have you on the podcast and being able to learn
48:13
more about the Blue Carbon Action Network and the projects that you guys are
48:17
helping and partnering and finding out all about the intricate details.
48:21
I think it's really important. I know these projects go on and
48:24
some people tend not to know about them, so now my audience knows about
48:28
them and I appreciate you coming on and explaining. And I know you're
48:31
doing this early in the morning California time, so I really do appreciate it.
48:34
And I'm sorry to get you up so early to do this, but
48:38
I definitely appreciate it. And it's been so much fun to
48:41
have you on. I'd love to have you back on to discuss more of BCAP in
48:45
the future and to get updates on some of those projects that
48:55
You bet. Thank you. Thank you, Emily, for joining me here on the
48:59
How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was great to have you on. So
49:02
much information. I love the fact that there's so
49:05
many levels to this, and it can be very complicated. But
49:09
really, the core part of this is let's start making
49:12
coastal habitats productive and making sure that
49:16
it hits those core benefits for
49:20
those coastal communities that will benefit from that.
49:23
Their households will benefit. It's not just individuals, not just a sector
49:27
of that village or that area, that community. It's
49:31
everybody benefits. And I think that's really important. And it goes
49:34
to show the complexities of these types of projects and why it's
49:37
so hard to get them going. I even love the fact that Emily
49:41
started mentioning how you can get involved and how you can help
49:44
support these projects in natural areas. in your area. We
49:47
talked a lot about looking around your area. It doesn't matter where you live,
49:50
whether you live in Canada, the UK, the States, Latin America, Australia,
49:55
Africa. Look around and look at where your natural areas are
49:59
and protect those areas. Work with organizations, work with
50:04
your governments and stuff to ensure that they know that
50:08
those natural areas are important to you. And when there
50:11
are areas or there are times when you can participate
50:16
in public comment, participate. That's the really
50:19
important thing. So it's a huge awareness campaign
50:23
for yourself. Like see what's local, see what's national,
50:27
regional, whatever that might be, and then look at
50:30
international and be able to participate in those. So there's so many different levels
50:34
that you can participate on. and be aware of what's happening and then talk to
50:37
other people about it. That's the big thing is really knowledge and gaining
50:40
that knowledge. And, you know, one of the things you can do is you can start,
50:44
you know, if this is your first episode, you can start listening to the podcast. And,
50:47
you know, I talk about different projects that are going on. I talk about different ocean
50:50
news and how you can participate and so forth. And I think that's important. That's
50:54
important to have and to have for a very long time in the future. We
50:57
do these episodes three times a week. So follow, subscribe, whatever you need to
51:01
do and and support the podcast. So I want to
51:04
thank you for joining me and for Emily for joining me on
51:07
the podcast. It was really great to have her on and I
51:10
can't wait to have her back on to talk more about the Blue Carbon Action
51:15
Partnership. That gets a lot after a while for me to
51:18
say, BCAP. But really happy to have Emily
51:21
on, can't wait to have her back on. And if you have any questions, you can leave a comment on
51:25
Spotify, YouTube, You can hit me up on
51:30
Instagram at how to protect the ocean. So many different ways of getting a
51:34
hold of me. I'm on LinkedIn as well. So feel free to connect with me there. There's
51:37
just so many ways. And I will listen to
51:40
you in any kind of way. So that's the whole point of this is to start
51:44
the conversation by presenting you the information. Love to hear your feedback. That's
51:47
really, really important to me. But thank you so much for
51:51
joining me. That's it for today's podcast. So thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of
51:54
the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and