Mobilizing capital investments for conservation and coastal resilience remains a primary obstacle in managing coastal and marine ecosystems.

They are also among the ecosystems most threatened by climate change!

Blue Carbon Credit is a new source of financing for the conservation and restoration of these critical ecosystems.

Oceans and coastal plant species such as  mangroves  and  seagrasses cover only a small fraction of the earth but are responsible for sequestering over half of all the carbon captured by living organisms.

Their critical contribution to carbon sequestration, or “Blue Carbon,” could be crucial in facilitating both private and public capital investment in these dynamic ecosystems.

But the blue-carbon market is still nascent and more needs to be done to promote and facilitate the generation and trade of Blue Carbon Credits.

So how to push forward with the creation and regulation of Blue Carbon Credits?

A good way of achieving this is to adapt the mechanisms that are in place used to facilitate investment in terrestrial carbon to include blue carbon.

• Nationally determined contributions (#NDCs) give regulatory markets the opportunity to improve their monitoring and accounting for carbon emissions thereby facilitating the trade of credits.
• We need to integrate wetlands and mangroves into these programs
• Integrating blue carbon into NDCs can also be used through greenhouse gas inventories to keep better and more accurate records.
• In addition to the regulatory markets, the voluntary markets are also very promising!
• More and more companies are looking to become carbon neutral or reduce their carbon footprints.
• We also need accounting frameworks to facilitate credit trade.

Verra  already provides accounting frameworks for blue carbon conservation methodology approved under any major GHG program.

The Methodology Framework (VM0007, link in comments), adds blue carbon conservation and restoration activities as an eligible project type and is expected to unlock new sources of finance for tidal wetland conservation and restoration activities.

So there is vast potential in the creation and implementation of Blue Carbon Credits, as the creation of blue carbon projects can not only help combat the effects of greenhouse emissions but will also provide important economic, social, and environmental benefits for local communities.

A good example of this is the restoration of mangrove forests which can also 𝙙𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙚𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 through the stabilization of substrate and the reduction of wave energy + sustain entire marine ecosystems at the same time that it acts as a carbon offset or carbon sink.