Sustaining swamps for coastal people and the global climate

What looks like an impenetrable tangle of tree roots and muck is actually a carbon treasure. Wetlands, which include peatlands and mangroves, are home to 60% of the world’s people and threatened species like the Sumatran tiger – but shrimp farming and other agricultural development are rapidly eating them up.

CIFOR has led groundbreaking research on wetlands, including a pivotal 2011 discovery that they store 3-5 times more carbon than other tropical forests, most of it in the soil. Now the team is ramping up research and engagement to get these critical but fragile ecosystems on the global climate policy map.

A passion for wetlands – and for linking science to policy

The LIPI-Sarwono Award is the highest honor given by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). In 2018, it went to CIFOR Principal Scientist Daniel Murdiyarso for his tireless research on wetlands. He has done much to place these ‘undervalued or marginal’ lands – as he was taught they were – on the global climate change agenda.

Murdiyarso leads CIFOR’s Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program, funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Bringing people together for blue carbon

Carbon stored in mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows is referred to as ‘blue carbon’ – and it could just save the day for many countries’ climate commitments. The inaugural Blue Carbon Summit, held in Jakarta in July 2018, brought together people from government ministers to international researchers to discuss the value of these coastal ecosystems.

At the summit, CIFOR and partners suggested that countries with large areas of mangroves should include blue carbon in their revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.

Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program (SWAMP)

Since 2011, SWAMP has informed both global and national climate policies through its robust science, collaboration and intensive training. The project is generating knowledge to help manage wetlands sustainably, devise effective climate change strategies and improve local livelihoods. Sea level rise, flooding in coastal Asia and the effects of saltwater intrusion on farmlands are new research topics in 2018. SWAMP scientists have published more than 50 scientific papers in impactful journals, including Nature Geoscience, Nature Climate Change and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Creating blue carbon opportunities

Based on data and urgency, CIFOR scientists proposed that Indonesia place a moratorium on further conversion of mangroves. A policy brief outlines why preserving intact ecosystems is more effective than restoring degraded ones – saving up to USD 3 billion per year – and how restoring priority degraded blue carbon ecosystems can build climate change resilience and improve livelihoods. For example, CIFOR research in Kaimana Regency, West Papua shows that a collaborative blue carbon program facilitating mud crab fishing has provided economic opportunities for local women.

Blue carbon primer outlines the state of the world’s coastal wetlands

Indonesia houses almost a quarter of the world’s mangroves – more than any continent – but it has lost 40% of them in the past 30 years. A blue carbon primer makes the case for mainstreaming sustainable management of mangroves into a national regulatory framework and aligning it with the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals.

In pictures

Being based in Indonesia, which holds nearly a quarter of the world’s wetlands, CIFOR began researching these neglected ecosystems early on, greatly accelerating its research and engagement after the 2011 discovery of wetlands’ massive carbon-storing potential. 

Uncovering the value of wetlands … over the years

Since it is based in Indonesia – which holds nearly a quarter of the world’s wetlands – CIFOR began researching these neglected ecosystems early on, greatly accelerating its research and engagement after the 2011 discovery of wetlands’ massive carbon-storing potential.