Prioritizing mangrove conservation across Mexico to facilitate 2020 NDC ambition
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Prioritizing mangrove conservation across Mexico to facilitate 2020 NDC ambition Joy A. Kumagai , Matthew T. Costa, Exequiel Ezcurra, Octavio Aburto-Oropeza
Received: 18 September 2019 / Revised: 5 February 2020 / Accepted: 27 March 2020
Abstract There is a scale mismatch between mangrove conservation and carbon emission mitigation policies despite mangroves contributing disproportionally to global carbon sequestration. Using Mexico as a case study in the integration of these scales, we estimate mangrove carbon value and deforestation rates at the municipio (local government) scale and develop a prioritization model that indicates where to focus conservation efforts. By using previously published global models of carbon stocks, Mexico-specific carbon sequestration data, and calculating gross deforestation, we found that the current rate of deforestation will result in a social cost of 392.0 (± 7.4) million US$ over the next 25 years. The prioritization model identified 26 municipios of 175, where if all mangroves are conserved, 50% of this cost could be avoided. Bridging the gap between research and governmental action using local initiatives will be paramount for the effective management of mangrove carbon. Keywords Blue carbon Carbon sequestration Conservation Ecosystem services Mangroves Mexico
INTRODUCTION Mangroves make significant contributions to global carbon sequestration (Chmura et al. 2003; Nellemann and GRIDArendal 2009). Although they comprise \ 0.1% of Earth’s surface (Atwood et al. 2017; Hamilton and Friess, 2018), Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01334-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
mangroves sequester 13.5 Gt of carbon each year by converting CO2 into organic carbon (Alongi 2012). A portion of this carbon is not decomposed and contributes to large organic carbon (‘‘carbon’’ hereafter) stocks in mangroves. Mangroves contribute over 3% of global forest carbon sequestration (Alongi 2012), with soil carbon stocks triple than those in other forests (Donato et al. 2011). Clearing mangroves not only stops carbon sequestration but also exposes their large carbon stocks to be released into the atmosphere as CO2 and CH4 (Kauffman et al. 2016; Adame et al. 2018). Thus, deforestation increases carbon emissions and reduces mitigation capacity. Despite this importance, mangroves are being deforested around the globe. Over the twentieth century, 30–50% of global mangrove cover has been destroyed (Gallatin et al. 1947; Polidoro et al. 2010). Drivers of deforestation are varied and nuanced. In Ecuador, large areas of mangrove have been converted into shrimp aquaculture ponds (Hamilton and Lovette 2015). In Indonesia, mangroves are converted into palm oil plantations (Richards and Friess 2016). Mangroves often experience pressures simultaneously including aquaculture, agriculture, coastal development, and pollution (Thomas et al. 2017). Mexico provides a suitable case s
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