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National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Blue Carbon: A Transformational Tool for Marine Management and Conservation GloballySeptember 25

About Our Speaker


Dr Emily Pidgeon

Dr. Emily Pidgeon is the Senior Director of Conservation International's Strategic Marine Initiatives and is currently focused on developing nature-based solutions for coastal and marine adaptation and climate mitigation through "blue carbon". She is currently leading the Blue Carbon Initiative - a global partnership focussed on recognizing the carbon and other values of coastal ecosystems and increasing conservation and restoration of these coastal ecosystems. This includes developing and implementing conservation and management projects with teams globally. Dr. Pidgeon has a broad background in marine and coastal science and engineering. After completing her Ph.D. in environmental engineering at Stanford University, she was a research scientist working on coastal oceanography problems at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. Dr. Pidgeon has also worked in the oil and gas industry and as a consultant addressing pollutant issues in coastal waters.

About the Talk

Coastal “blue” carbon – carbon stored in the coastal ecosystems of mangroves, seagrasses and tidal marshes – has strong potential to transform management and conservation of coastal ecosystems. Scientific understanding of carbon sequestration and emissions from coastal ecosystems is now sufficient to be integrated into effective management, policy, and conservation approaches. A growing number of governments and organizations are exploring mechanisms for implementing blue carbon based conservation projects. Accounting for the blue carbon sequestered in coastal systems has the potential to be a significant tool in promoting and sustainably financing marine management and conservation in coastal areas. Recent updates to the IPCC recommendations on carbon accounting in wetlands now provide explicit guidance to countries on including coastal wetlands in national carbon inventories. Many existing policy agreements and carbon financing mechanisms are immediately applicable, but challenges - policy, scientific and conservation - remain. Here we give an overview of the potential for blue carbon to contribute to coastal conservation efforts and the challenges facing implementation from international to national to local scales.

Slides

PDF of slides

Recording

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This talk was held at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on October 14, 2014, as part of the Carbon Monitoring System Applications Policy Speaker Series.

For upcoming events, check out CMS Applications Policy Speaker Series.

Your suggestions for future speakers or feedback about our series are welcomed.  Contact the Applications Team.