Protecting Antarctic blue carbon: as marine ice retreats can the law fill the gap?

Gogarty, B; McGee, Jeffrey; Barnes, David K. A.; Sands, Chester J.; Bax, Narissa; Haward, Marcus; Downey, Rachel; Moreau, Camille; Moreno, Bernabé; Held, Christoph; Paulsen, Maria Lund

doi:10.1080/14693062.2019.1694482

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Biodiversity protection networks, such as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), can restore biodiversity and ecosystem function (Edgar et al 2014 ) and directly benefit wellbeing by providing ecosystem services like blue carbon (marine carbon capture) (Bax et al 2019 , 2020 ; Gogarty et al 2019 ) and coastal protection (BenDor 2015, Lau et al 2019 ), as well as coastal livelihoods (McLeod et al 2018 ; Sanderman et al 2018 ). While such restoration activities are lagging behind in marine areas compared with land (Bayraktarov et al 2015, France 2016 , McLeod et al 2018 ), examples do exist (see: Worthington and Spalding 2018 ; Valdez et al 2020 ).…”

Section: Action 3: Network That Maintain and Enhance Biodiversity Armentioning

confidence: 99%

Ocean resource use: building the coastal blue economy

Bax

Novaglio

Maxwell

et al. 2021

Rev Fish Biol Fisheries

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Humans have relied on coastal resources for centuries. However, current growth in population and increased accessibility of coastal resources through technology have resulted in overcrowded and often conflicted spaces. The recent global move towards development of national blue economy strategies further highlights the increased focus on coastal resources to address a broad range of blue growth industries. The need to manage sustainable development and future exploitation of both over-utilised and emergent coastal resources is both a political and environmental complexity. To address this complexity, we draw on the perspectives of a multi-disciplinary team, utilising two in depth exemplary case studies in New Zealand and within the Myanmar Delta Landscape, to showcase barriers, pathways and actions that facilitate a move from Business as Usual (BAU) to a future aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the UN International Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021–2030. We provide key recommendations to guide interest groups, and nations globally, towards sustainable utilisation, conservation and preservation of their marine environments in a fair and equitable way, and in collaboration with those who directly rely upon coastal ecosystems. We envision a sustainable future driven by conflict mitigation and resolution, where: Change is motivated and facilitated Coastal ecosystems are co-managed by multiple reliant groups Networks that maintain and enhance biodiversity are implemented Decision-making is equitable and based on ecosystem services Knowledge of the marine realm is strengthened—‘mapping the ocean of life’ The interests of diverse user groups are balanced with a fair distribution of benefits

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Section: Action 3: Network That Maintain and Enhance Biodiversity Armentioning

confidence: 99%

Ocean resource use: building the coastal blue economy

Bax

Novaglio

Maxwell

et al. 2021

Rev Fish Biol Fisheries

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“…This study provides a good preliminary assessment of polychete communities in the Prince Gustav channel in terms of broad dominant functional groups present and taxonomic composition at the family level. The turnover in community structure and diversity is important to understand in a wider perspective; significantly increased burial of organic carbon caused by loss of ice cover and increased primary production has recently been reported from Antarctic areas (Barnes, 2015;Fogwill et al, 2020;Pineda-Metz et al, 2020;Rogers et al, 2020) but the role of the faunal response to changed nutrient availability and sedimentation rates are not known (Smith and DeMaster, 2008;Gogarty et al, 2020). However, diversity at the species level can be difficult to assess based on morphological identification alone.…”

Section: Morphological Limitations and Future Molecular Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Annelid Fauna of the Prince Gustav Channel, a Previously Ice-Covered Seaway on the Northeastern Antarctic Peninsula

et al. 2021

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The Prince Gustav Channel is a narrow seaway located in the western Weddell Sea on the northeastern-most tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. The channel is notable for both its deep (>1200 m) basins, and a dynamic glacial history that most recently includes the break-up of the Prince Gustav Ice Shelf, which covered the southern portion of the channel until its collapse in 1995. However, the channel remains mostly unsampled, with very little known about its benthic biology. We present a preliminary account of the benthic annelid fauna of the Prince Gustav Channel in addition to samples from Duse Bay, a sheltered, glacier-influenced embayment in the northwestern portion of the channel. Samples were collected using an Agassiz Trawl, targeting megafaunal and large macrofaunal sized animals at depths ranging between 200–1200 m; the seafloor and associated fauna were also documented in situ using a Shallow Underwater Camera System (SUCS). Sample sites varied in terms of depth, substrate type, and current regime, and communities were locally variable across sites in terms of richness, abundance, and both taxonomic and functional composition. The most diverse family included the motile predator/scavenger Polynoidae, with 105 individuals in at least 12 morphospecies, primarily from a single site. This study provides first insights into diverse and spatially heterogeneous benthic communities in a dynamic habitat with continuing glacial influence, filling sampling gaps in a poorly studied region of the Southern Ocean at direct risk from climate change. These specimens will also be utilized in future molecular investigations, both in terms of describing the genetic biodiversity of this site and as part of wider phylogeographic and population genetic analyses assessing the connectivity, evolutionary origins, and demographic history of annelid fauna in the region.

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“…To date, benthic blue carbon has been little considered alongside the larger and better understood carbon sinks of the Southern Ocean. However, several new projects, such as the ‘Antarctic Seabed Carbon Capture Change (ASCCC)’, ‘Impact of ice loss and deglaciation on Antarctic coastal benthic ecosystems (ICEBERGS)’ and the ‘Changing Arctic Ocean Seabed (ChAOS)’, have been established to try and quantify the various aspects of the biological side of carbon storage and sequestration in the polar regions (Gogarty et al., 2020). Even if the total amount of carbon sequestered into a square metre of sediment is tiny compared with mangrove forests, seagrass beds and salt marshes, it occurs over many million square kilometres (Ashton et al., 2017).…”

Section: The Value Of Antarctic Shelf Blue Carbonmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, there has been recent advocacy towards changes in international law and policy to increase protection of these areas to conserve Antarctica's capacity as a region of carbon capture and efficient conversion to storage and potentially on to sequestration (Gogarty et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An unusually optimistic finding has been that of increasing capacity of natural carbon capture (by biological processes) leading to bolstered storage and sequestration around the Antarctic continental shelf in the form of biological growth, accumulation and ultimately burial of benthic organisms in the seabed (Antarctic blue carbon; Barnes et al., 2018). Indeed, there has been recent advocacy towards changes in international law and policy to increase protection of these areas to conserve Antarctica's capacity as a region of carbon capture and efficient conversion to storage and potentially on to sequestration (Gogarty et al., 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Perspective: Increasing blue carbon around Antarctica is an ecosystem service of considerable societal and economic value worth protecting

Bax

Sands

Gogarty

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

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Precautionary conservation and cooperative global governance are needed to protect Antarctic blue carbon: the world's largest increasing natural form of carbon storage with high sequestration potential. As patterns of ice loss around Antarctica become more uniform, there is an underlying increase in carbon capture-to-storageto-sequestration on the seafloor. The amount of carbon captured per unit area is increasing and the area available to blue carbon is also increasing. Carbon sequestration could further increase under moderate (+1°C) ocean warming, contrary to decreasing global blue carbon stocks elsewhere. For example, in warmer waters, mangroves and seagrasses are in decline and benthic organisms are close to their physiological limits, so a 1°C increase in water temperature could push them above their thermal tolerance (e.g. bleaching of coral reefs). In contrast, on the basis of past change and current research, we expect that Antarctic blue carbon could increase by orders of magnitude. The Antarctic seafloor is biophysically unique and the site of carbon sequestration, the benthos, faces less anthropogenic disturbance than any other ocean continental shelf environment. This isolation imparts both vulnerability to change, and an avenue to conserve one of the world's last biodiversity refuges. In economic terms, the value of Antarctic blue carbon is estimated at between £0.65 and £1.76 billion (~2.27 billion USD) for sequestered carbon in the benthos around the continental shelf. To balance biodiversity protection against society's economic objectives, this paper builds on a proposal incentivising protection by building a 'nonmarket framework' via the 2015 Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This could be connected and coordinated through the Antarctic Treaty System to promote and motivate member states to value Antarctic blue carbon and maintain scientific integrity and conservation for the positive societal values ingrained in the Antarctic Treaty System.

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Protecting Antarctic blue carbon: as marine ice retreats can the law fill the gap?

Cited by 13 publications

References 38 publications

Ocean resource use: building the coastal blue economy

Ocean resource use: building the coastal blue economy

Annelid Fauna of the Prince Gustav Channel, a Previously Ice-Covered Seaway on the Northeastern Antarctic Peninsula

Perspective: Increasing blue carbon around Antarctica is an ecosystem service of considerable societal and economic value worth protecting

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