Indonesia plans new blue carbon project with Norway

Indonesia is paving a way to further integrate the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) scheme into its coastal conservation program under the 'blue carbon' project.

Norway comes as the latest developed country that sees an eye-to-eye on the plan.

The commitment was expressed during the bilateral meeting with Norway’s Climate and Environment Minister Vidar Helgesen right on the first day of The United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference.

“We have discussed with the government of Norway about the blue carbon, illegal, unreported, and unregulated [IUU] fishing, as well as the capacity building. We asked for their support,” said the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, in New York on Tuesday.

The ‘blue carbon’ is a term for the carbon that is sequestered and stored by marine and coastal wetland ecosystems — such as sea grasses, mangroves, and tidal marshes — not just in the plants themselves, but also in the soils.

Dozens of reports have indicated that these coastal wetlands are able to store larger amounts of carbon than that of the rainforest ecosystem. A CIFOR study in 2015, for example, found that mangrove ecosystems store significant amount of carbon – up to 5 times more than tropical forests.

According to Vidar, Indonesia holds a significant share of the world’s sea grass meadow and mangrove forests which are important for the mitigation of climate change due to their roles as natural sinks for atmospheric CO2 and may be responsible for the significant role on the ocean annual net CO2 uptake.

“Indonesia has initiated research on coastal carbon by conducting carbon stock inventory on sea grass and mangrove ecosystems in 11 areas, we are still in progress with additional improvement aspects such as modeling and mapping carbon stock,” Vidar said.

Carbon stock of Indonesia’s mangrove and sea grass is estimated 3,4 PgC, about 17 percent of the word’s blue carbon reservoir. “Norways initiative and grant for the purpose to promote REDD+ should be expanded to include also healthy oceans and blue carbon initiative to promote the effort of restoration and conservation of coastal wetlands which have multiple ecosystem services and benefits to society,” Vidar said.

Indonesia currently has around 3 million hectares of mangroves that store some 3 billion tons of carbon. If Indonesia’s coastal potential is unlocked it will absorb 138 tons equivalent of carbon per year, or 25 percent of the world’s carbon emission.

Historically, it is not the first time for Norway to provide financial support for Indonesia under the REDD+ scheme. In 2010, a letter of intent was signed to reduce forest-based gas emissions in return for financial REDD+ support of up to US$1 billion.

However, if the commitment ends up into real action in the future, it will be the first time for Norway to conduct RDD+ with Indonesia under the blue carbon initiative.

“They have been helping Indonesia very seriously in the climate change issue in the past, such as helping the preservation of our rainforest, peat lands, and taming the forest fore. Now, we expect them to join us to the coast, because marine is part of Norway’s life,” Susi said.

According to the Maritime and Fisheries Ministry's data, the carbon trade market has reached more than US$140 billion per year, with 70 percent of it came from European countries.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), as part of its mission to reduce threats to our global climate system, promotes the sustainable management, conservation, and enhancement of sinks and reservoirs of all greenhouse gases, including those in coastal marine ecosystems.

According to the World Bank study, the blue carbon sinks, such as mangroves and other vegetated ocean habitats, sequester 25 percent of the extra carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and also protect coastal communities from floods and storms.

Thus for Indonesia, the new REDD+ scheme can be implemented as part of its nine voluntary commitments in the UN Ocean Conference, where the country has vowed to substantially enlarge its maritime conservation area and conserve 20 million hectares of water conservation area by 2019.