Crooks' international blue carbon working groups are discussing the details for a supplement on blue carbon for the fifth IPCC assessment report, to be finalized in 2014.

"It's not a slam-dunk," Crooks said. "But the conservation benefits to protect these ecosystems is very high indeed; there is a lot of value in improving this."

Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500

14 Comments

1. 1. jlohmeyer 01:46 PM 7/31/12

   Don't forget the huge benefit of protecting coastal lands from storms. Mangroves can serve to help mitigate sea level rises and inland flooding.

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2. 2. priddseren 02:04 PM 7/31/12

   This is a good idea independant of any global warming is the next armegeddon nonsense. This is what I mean by you warmists and your ideology. Restoring mangroves is a good idea independant of any so called CO2 offset. So why sit there and use your fabricated CO2 estimates on how much is offset and put it in terms of only CO2?
   
   All the benefits together from these mangroves being restored probably makes it less than your CO2 numbers.
   
   My solar panels have the same ridiculous CO2 savings numbers. So far in July I have supposedly "saved" 3000 lbs of CO2, I just dont buy it but then I did not get solar panels because of any belief I would be affecting CO2 anyway, I am just demonstrating a personal example of doing something useful, like using my panels so my indirect burning of coal does not add any extra heat, which is where any human caused warming is coming from( our heat production) and of course reducing all kinds of pollutants from coal. No where was reducing CO2 to reverse global warming part of my decision to buy panels and restoring mangroves should have more reasons than the half scam CO2 nonsense as predicted by flawed computer models.

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3. 3. RSchmidt in reply to priddseren 03:30 PM 7/31/12

   @priddseren, we get it, you're an idiot. You don't have to keep on slamming the point home.
   

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4. 4. jgrosay 03:39 PM 7/31/12

   These places also act a breeding sites for a multitude of fish, shrimps and other edible animals, the practice of respecting sections of mangrove in places transformed for intensive shrimp breeding allowed a very good conservation and supply of food for shrimps, and establishing no fishing sanctuaries alternating with strips where fishing is allowed also prevented exhaustion of traditional fishing places that were reducing year after year its yield. Even more, when people involved in traditional fishing perceives the benefit of sanctuaries, the needs for any kind of reinforcement of the regulations about free fishing areas and forbidden to fishing ones is reduced.

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5. 5. Acoyauh2 05:20 PM 7/31/12

   Denialists' rants aside, presrving and, better yet, restoring mangroves protect coastlines, and act as breeding grounds of counless aquatic species that are suffering from the lack of these areas as much as they do from overfishing.
   Of course, only CO2 capture schemes have economic value, right? Preserving a wild environment does not put money in corps' or politicians' pockets so that approach is not worth pursuing...

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6. 6. priddseren in reply to Acoyauh2 11:09 PM 7/31/12

   You have a point there, the politicians can tax, scam and scheme to obtain money and power for themselves in taxes or in the green corporations the politicians own with nonsense like CO2.
   The politicians need CO2 for their scams, too bad they wont either spend the money they pillage on something like mangroves or get out of the way so someone else could do it.

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7. 7. priddseren in reply to RSchmidt 11:12 PM 7/31/12

   Great, the primary defense of the warmists, just declare the other guy an idiot, so you don't have to look at your own ridiculous computer generated prophecies. You do realize the ridiculous concepts in bibles and other holy books are defended the same way. Look at the idiot claiming this flawed holy book could be wrong, works well with look at the idiot who claims the flawed computer models could be wrong.

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8. 8. Nichol 08:28 AM 8/1/12

   Nice positive way to pose this .. as it is of course really a massive problem: there always were mangrove forests, and they are now being degraded, which causes great loss to the ecosystem, and also frees up large amounts of CO2 that was being stored in the mud, before. But of course this is one of those 'no brainer' things we need to do: start protecting these mangroves in stead of ruining them.

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9. 9. RSchmidt 10:06 AM 8/1/12

   @priddseren, you're an idiot because you post the same B.S. here over and over again, even though it has been well refuted over and over again. Climate science is not only based on models and you know that. But, because you are fundamentally irrational, you continue to use strawman fallacies to advance your agenda. So, yes, I am attacking you because you are the problem. Your inability to accept the facts and instead lie and distort the truth in order to hold on to your delusions. You're the problem, not the models, not the science, just you.

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10. 10. alan6302 10:34 AM 8/1/12

    Isaiah 30:26 predicts a solar storm at this time period. 700 % for 7 days. Less than 5 months away. Dec 2012 .21 looks reasonable at this time. Nostradamus and the crop circles back up the prediction. Not to worry ....millions should survive.

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11. 11. mike_midwest 02:06 PM 8/1/12

    Computer models are used to defend the Bible?

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12. 12. mike_midwest 02:11 PM 8/1/12

    "Mangrove forests ... have the potential to store about 2.5 times as much CO2 as humans produce globally each year."
    
    That seems like an extreme claim. Does anyone know where this estimate comes from?

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13. 13. geojellyroll 02:52 PM 8/1/12

    Restore? What percent is lost and exactly 'where' will it be restored?We shouldn't be destroying one ecosystem with another.
    
    I doubt if folks in Asia, etc. living along former natural nangrove areas are going to want them restored anymore than folks in Los angeles want their city leveled and returned to natural desert..

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14. 14. HubertB 04:47 PM 8/6/12

    The mangrove forest will be restored in the shallow waters off Africa such as eastern Egypt where nothing now lives or grows. At one time a great mangrove forest grew there, now nothing does. At one time other great mangrove forests grew in such places where nothing grows.
    
    The people in Asia, who used to be protected from ocean flooding by a mangrove forest, might not mind having such protection once again. I have not heard many of them praising Allah that their houses are soaked and they lost family members to cholera.
    
    Why should not the people of Los Angeles get rid of their lawns as most of Arizona has done. People in Phoenix have discovered the beauty of desertscape.

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