Edinburgh Napier University

  Blue Carbon habitats - mangroves, seagrass meadows and salt marshes - are unusually important and beautiful ecosystems. Stopping and reversing their loss commands the enthusiastic support of economists, ecologists, development experts and the millions of people who rely directly on their services. Blue Carbon habitats are also championed within climate change policy (such as the Paris Agreement) and international initiatives, because of the exceptional power of these places as natural carbon sinks. Two developments have the power to transform Blue Carbon conservation and management: Community Based Management (CBM) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) towards achieving the Paris Agreement.

Our team brings unique expertise in both of these areas, with the aim of facilitating the fair, transparent and scalable incorporation of Blue Carbon into NDCs. Local projects lack global impact; international targets and top-down management can stifle and expropriate local innovations. Bringing our experience at local, national and international levels, our work will support the dynamism and justice of small CBM projects but link these with the global scale of international commitments. We will work at the local and national scales in Kenya and communicate lessons-learned to the international community.