Towards Incorporation of Blue Carbon in Falkland Islands Marine Spatial Planning: A Multi-Tiered Approach

Abstract

Ecosystem-based conservation that includes carbon sinks, alongside a linked carbon credit system, as part of a nature-based solution to combating climate change, could help reduce greenhouse gas levels and therefore the impact of their emissions. Blue carbon habitats and pathways can also facilitate biodiversity retention, aiding sustainable fisheries and island economies. However, robust blue carbon research is often limited at the scale of regional governance and management, lacking both incentives and facilitation of policy-integration. The remote and highly biodiverse coastal ecosystems and surrounding continental shelf can be used to better inform long-term ecosystem-based management in the vast South Atlantic Ocean and sub-Antarctic, to synergistically protect both unique biodiversity and inform on the magnitude of nature-based benefits they provide. Understanding key ecosystem information such as their location, extent, and condition of habitat types, will be critical in understanding carbon pathways to sequestration, threats to this, and vulnerability. This paper considers the current status of blue carbon data and information available, and what is still required before blue carbon can be used as a conservation management tool integrated in national Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) initiatives. Our research indicates that the data and information gathered has enabled baselines for a number of different blue carbon ecosystems, and indicated potential threats and vulnerability that need to be managed. However, significant knowledge gaps remain across habitats, such as salt marsh, mudflats and the mesophotic zones, which hinders meaningful progress on the ground where it is needed most.

Marine nutrient subsidies promote biogeochemical hotspots in undisturbed, highly humic estuaries

“…Figure 2 provides an example of the visual appearance of the estuaries. The tidal range of the Falklands is relatively small (maximum 1.9 m in Stanley; Bax et al 2022), but estuaries tend to be shallow and are therefore effectively flushed during each tidal cycle.…”

“…The Falkland Islands are among the most peat‐dominated regions in the world, with the majority of the land area occupied by peat or other organic soils (Carter et al 2020). Coastal marine ecosystems here are also notably carbon‐rich (Bax et al 2022). River lengths are short, there are no lakes or reservoirs along the main river channels, and population density is extremely low.…”

Heterotrophy in marine animal forests in an era of climate change

“…In addition, as local currents, water column stratification, nutrient cycling, and primary production will be affected under global change, concentrations of allochthonous nutrients delivered to MAF communities are expected to decrease (Sweetman et al ., 2017; Bindoff et al ., 2019). This will significantly alter the structural and functional characteristics of MAF communities, ultimately affecting large‐scale ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling and carbon storage (Lesser & Slattery, 2020; Bax et al ., 2022). Thus, greater consideration of trophic interactions at all levels of MAF ecological organisation is important to assess the full extent of anthropogenic disturbances to these ecosystems.…”

A Systematic Review and Global Trends on Blue Carbon and Sustainable Development: A Bibliometric Study from 2012 to 2023

“…A wide range of topics are discussed in these articles, ranging from ocean carbon cycles to ecosystem health. One article was published in 2015 [69], another in 2016 [100], one in 2019 [101], one in 2021 [102], one in 2023 [103] and the remaining eight in 2022 [104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111]. Frontiers in Marine Science has contributed to the field at various times, which is essential to its continued growth.…”

“…Natural-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches are good policy options [279,280]. In detail, blue carbon can be integrated into national Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) as a conservation management tool in the proposed spatial planning laws [106,163]. MSPs that address ocean climate change ('climate-smart MSPs') may find that ocean climate change modelling is a key decision-support tool [281].…”