In this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, host Andrew Lewin speaks with Emily Kelly from the Blue Carbon Action Network at the World Economic Forum. They discuss the tangible actions to combat climate change through restoration and blue carbon projects, focusing on restoring mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrasses. Emily highlights the human-centric approach of these projects, which not only benefit the environment but also support local communities.
Tune in to learn more about the global, national, and local efforts to protect the ocean and combat climate change.
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Engaging in public comment opportunities and community discussions can play a crucial role in preventing the development of natural areas for human-centric purposes. As discussed in the podcast episode with Emily Kelly from the Blue Carbon Action Network, the importance of being aware of the natural areas around you and taking action to protect them was highlighted.
For example, the episode mentioned a situation where Florida State Parks were at risk of being developed into golf courses and resorts. Organizations like the National Audubon Society and other conservation groups raised awareness about public comment periods and public meetings to allow the community to voice their concerns. This led to a delay in the development plans, showcasing the power of public engagement in protecting natural areas.
By participating in public comment opportunities and community discussions, individuals can have a say in the decision-making process regarding the development of natural areas. It allows community members to express their concerns, share their perspectives, and advocate for the preservation of these valuable ecosystems. Public engagement can bring attention to the importance of these areas for biodiversity, carbon sequestration, shoreline protection, and community well-being.
Furthermore, spreading awareness about public comment opportunities within local neighborhoods can mobilize more individuals to participate in the decision-making process. By discussing the significance of preserving natural areas and encouraging community involvement, people can collectively work towards safeguarding these ecosystems for future generations. Public engagement serves as a powerful tool in advocating for the protection of natural areas and ensuring sustainable development practices that prioritize environmental conservation.
Celebrating successes and rewarding behavior that uplifts the ocean is a crucial aspect of contributing to ocean protection efforts. In the podcast episode, Emily Kelly emphasized the importance of recognizing and supporting companies with sustainable practices. By investing in tourism destinations or purchasing seafood from companies that prioritize ecosystem management, individuals can actively contribute to protecting the ocean. Additionally, engaging with companies that are making positive impacts on the environment and supporting their initiatives can help drive positive change.
The episode highlighted the significance of valuing blue carbon ecosystems and the core benefits they provide to local communities. By acknowledging and promoting the successes of projects that focus on restoring mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes, individuals can play a role in encouraging sustainable practices. This positive reinforcement can incentivize more companies and organizations to prioritize environmental conservation and invest in projects that benefit both the ecosystem and local communities.
Furthermore, being aware of local ecosystems and advocating for their protection through public comment processes, as discussed in the episode, is another way individuals can actively participate in ocean protection efforts. By engaging in community discussions and raising awareness about the importance of preserving natural areas, individuals can contribute to safeguarding blue carbon habitats and promoting sustainable practices in their regions.
You know what I always wonder? I always wonder how we're doing in climate change. Like how are we reducing climate change? What projects are out there? We hear all about these global initiatives and the Paris Accord agreement and you know the convention for biological diversity you know and protecting biodiversity and all these countries signing on and then we see all these you know decade, ocean decade and you know 30 by 30 we have to protect the ocean and land 30 percent of the ocean and land. We always hear about these international agreements but what's actually happening? What's actually happening? How does that transfer to on-the-ground action? Well, I have Emily Kelly onto my guest today. She is part of the Blue Carbon Action Network from the World Economic Forum and they she's here to talk about that very same thing is how they're putting together restoration and blue action projects for blue carbon. So that could be restoring mangroves that could be restoring salt marshes that could be restoring seagrasses or even just supporting projects that take ocean and coastal areas and generate that into something that the community can benefit from. It's a very human-centric project and is global but also has some national and local ramifications which is just amazing to see and we're going to hear all about it from Emily Kelly. So we're going to talk about all of this on the this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I am your host Andrew Lewin and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. Now in today's episode we're going to be talking about action taking out from a global national and local level. We're going to talk about like international agreements like the Paris Accord Agreement. We're going to be talking about biodiversity and how to protect biodiversity and we're going to be really focusing in on specific habitats that are known as sort of blue carbon habitats, sea grass beds, salt marshes, mangroves. These are all areas that are being looked at as sort of being able to sort of take in carbon and sequester carbon but also have these co-benefits where they can provide a haven as a nursery habitat, they can protect young species, they can have a lot of biodiversity, they can have shoreline protection, but then they also look these action plans and these partnerships also look at how to fund these projects, how to make it sure that they're focusing in on the the core benefits, not the co-benefits which I just talked about but the core benefits of how is it going to benefit the community, how is it going to financially stabilize the community, how is it going to make sure that people in households all have roles to play, everything like that you know all around the world in the Philippines and Indonesia and Latin America all over the place we're going to be talking about projects that are going to be either going on or are going to be talked about in the future and going to happen in the future, we're going to talk about how that's all set up, you know it's as a scientist it's easy to say hey let's just restore this one area or these these areas because that's that makes sense, there's a lot of co-benefits, there's a lot of core benefits that get that all get sort of satisfied right and we start to see success but there's a lot of policy involved in that, there's a lot of stakeholder meetings, there's a lot of stuff that goes on it's never an easy project and that heads why it's been so difficult to put those in very quickly and so we're going to talk about how that's all played together Emily Kelly who is works for the blue action partner, blue carbon action partnership BCAP part of the world economic forum and she's here to talk about all these projects and how they all work and how they're all proposed and how you know the corporate partnerships happen and what they like to do and why they're part of this and you know talking about net and you know nature positive investments and so forth so there's a lot of stuff that we go over and I would love you know for you I can't wait for you to hear this interview but also ask questions after because I would love to get Emily back on and be able to ask more questions and you can contact me just wait till the end of the interview and you can figure out how to contact me then but here is the interview with Emily Kelly from the blue carbon action partnership and from the blue action club and here is Emily Kelly from the blue action and here is Emily Kelly from the blue carbon action partnership talking about the organization and what they do enjoy the interview and I'll talk to you after. Hey Emily welcome to how to protect the ocean podcast are you ready to talk about the blue carbon action partnership? Ready Andrew thanks so much for having me. No problem I'm super excited for this because it's not often we get somebody on the podcast to talk about blue carbon and I think it's such an important topic that always flies under the radar and I know there's reasons for it sometimes because it's it's not always like the sexy news like you know sometimes you get shark news or marine mammal news or things like that but it's so important to conservation especially in the situation that we are as a as a planet you know in terms of climate change and things like that we need to change and blue carbon are one of those topics that we need to talk more about so I'm excited to do that we're going to be talking about the organization you work with the blue carbon action partnership we're going to talk about what you guys do and all those things it's going to be a lot of fun but before we get into all of that Emily why don't you just let us know who you are and what you do yeah thanks Andrew and also on the sharks and all those other super charismatic animals they rely on some of these ecosystems these blue carbon ecosystems I'm so excited to talk more about that absolutely yeah so I am leaving our blue carbon action partnership it's an initiative run out of the world economic forum funded through the uk's blue planet fund we launched in 2023 and my background is in marine ecology actually prior to joining the world economic forum I was did a couple postdocs previous to that to my PhD at scripts and solution of oceanography and came to that through sort of multiple different steps previous to that but worked for the u.s. government briefly as a fellow did the masters focused on prairie chickens in New Mexico and how people make decisions about environmental debates so yeah so spent a few some time in different spaces hung out in Antarctica for a little bit so really happy to be working in blue carbon ecosystems right now where some of my heart really lies in photosynthetic organisms just to be extra nerdy about it and and things that fix carbon so yeah coming from a science natural science background and then moving into the policy with periodic pieces of policy throughout my background as well awesome one of the things I'm always interested is when I'm talking to people about their careers is you know you obviously you've had a very variety based you know diverse background in terms of the projects you've been able to work on what driven you throughout each of those projects like why take a masters studying prairie chickens why do work in Antarctica I mean obviously just to go to Antarctica is is enough but like what drove you to make those things be like this is the project that I want to go for that's I'm always curious for people I mean I think like I mean I love listening to some of your other guests and and like many people I think it's sort of what opportunity lies ahead that you feel like you can be helpful in and so I think that's sort of where I've and where you've had the opportunity and the good fortune of finding yourself so I think that's sort of how I've landed in all these different spaces certainly I mean I'm just super driven by passion for the ocean and I think as you may relate to and I think and so so it's always been really exciting to make connections with the ocean with kind of everything else that happens on our planet I love thinking about for example the sustainable development goals and how we think about where we want to go by 2030 and if you look at those sustainable development goals thinking about obviously there's one specific to the ocean SDG 14 but there are lots of them that's to every single sustainable development goal touches on the ocean if you think about coastal communities so if you think about food security nutrition poverty alleviation all these things and so I think it's really exciting to get to to share with others the power of the ocean and what a healthy ocean can mean for us globally right yeah and now speaking of globally you know it's you know this is a pretty big project you know when you look at the scope of everything when you how long have you been with with this this organization like and then and how long you've been working on this project and what made you decide this like this is where I'm going to be helpful so at the world economic form we work on public-private partnership so how can we get governments and corporations and many other stakeholders together to help tackle big challenges and and for the blue carbon space we were hearing more and more particularly from our corporate partners that they're really interested in thinking about blue carbon either from a nature positive perspective or from a carbon credit perspective and we can talk a lot more about those those pieces and they were interested in understanding a little bit more about what would it mean to invest in mangroves and we collaborate with our colleagues at the 1t.org which is the forms Trillion Trees initiative looking to conserve a store and grow one Trillion Trees by 2030 as part of the UN decade for ecosystem restoration and and from within that you know could there be something where we could be supportive and so we started thinking a little bit more about that and from that we the mangroves working group was born which is a collaboration between our ocean team and our 1t colleagues and helping our corporates better understand how they can connect with high quality projects learned from one another in investment in mangroves and then we also thought from the forum side you know how could we be supportive of governments because what we're really hearing is that governments are super interested in being involved more in blue carbon but they're looking for how to do it in a way that connects all the pieces that they have ongoing blue carbon ecosystems maybe taking a moment to back up to just explain how it can be complex from the film policy side we're we're primarily talking about mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes and these are super cross jurisdictional they when you're thinking about governments there are multiple ministries often that are in charge of these different resources in different ways so it might be there a tree in the case of mangroves but they're also in a coastal area and they maybe in seagrasses are below water and so those are often part of a fisheries ministry for example so there are a bunch of different ministries that are often involved so how can we think about supporting governments and connecting all these pieces and then how can we also link what's happening in the policy side and get additional investment into those ecosystems and that's where we thought our corporates would be really interested in playing a role so putting all those pieces together is really the genesis for why we thought where can the forum and the blue carbon action partnership serve a purpose in connecting the dots and being a platform for helping to to provide additional resources as governments are working on this and then connecting it to these global conversations that are happening. Gotcha I have a question in terms of when you've mentioned it a couple times sort of the corporates like sponsors and your corporal partners we often see in the space of conservation and restoration that there are there are partners there are a lot of times it's foundations there are granting agencies government will provide money a lot of the times through their own programs how does it work with corporate partners you know are they when they talk about investing into say a mangrove restoration or a conservation how does that all come to play? So these are we work with a number of corporations that are that work with the World Economic Forum and they are interested in thinking how can we invest it might be for nature positive investment it might be thinking about their net zero goals it could be related to any other sort of sort of like broader environment sustainability goal that they may have. We are they're not they are acting with their own they are acting independently of us but they're looking to get guidance support connections from us and so that's really where the excitement lies is you know as we have corporates thinking about wanting to invest they're really looking for how to do so in a really high quality way and I'll say that's what's so exciting is I think there's a real push for thinking about high-quality investment thinking about how to do I mean no one wants an article written about them about brainwashing. So how can how can they be looking to how can they make the best connections to invest in ways that are of the highest quality and you know an exciting part of that too is that was some of the initial conversation that came out of the mangrove's working group was you know what could be what is high quality in this space that was questions that we were getting and so from that came a really cool process of a number of different organizations and a global global collaborative effort with feedback from a number of different open workshops that created the high quality blue carbon principles and guidance which is the sort of overarching guidance that says here's what high quality means and that involves ensuring free and informed consent with communities looking at understanding context high quality investments so there are a number of different pieces that we can now say okay if you want to invest in a high quality way here are ways to do that and very excitingly some of the partners involved that are leading the way right now in creating a practitioner's guide for this or what does that mean in detail so that's coming soon that's so interesting so you know when you hear all these companies come up like they have their company and they have their corporation they get their revenue however which way whatever corporation they are and then they design because they want to be they want to you know they want to have that outlook on where people can just be like hey this company is doing some great things with their they've come up with these policies and these values where they want to give back to nature they want to make sure that nature is there and they want to help reduce climate change so they want to look around and invest in something like you mentioned before that would be nature positive so when they invest in a mangrove restoration or invest in particular a particular area does that mean like you know they're not looking for a return on investment the only return on investment is like that that the mangrove area that they've invested in that they've helped supply money to do the restoration is blooming and it's doing really well so they're looking for these guidance principles to make sure that they're doing the best work that they could be doing or they're investing their money in the best work that they can be doing is that do I have that that that down like is that how it goes essentially um this is a great preview so some work that we're doing right now in fact which is really really to um there's been a bunch of work to really understand okay what is what are the opportunities for corporate players in investing and I'll say also that um all the work that we're doing is also supporting a global movement called the mangrove breakthrough which is a collaborative effort between the UN um high level champions climate high level champions and um and the global mangrove alliance all of that work is really trying to um really unpack they've started this process where they're looking at different types of investment models from our side we're trying to think about what is what are the economics for investing in blue carbon ecosystems and so I will say that there there are a bunch of different opportunities so it could be that your founder and CEO like Salesforce and Mark Benioff is very passionate about the ocean yes and so they have commitments for what they want to do in terms of um planting trees and also for their net zero goals or it could be that you are a company like iberostar which is a hotel chain that is intimately connected with its surrounding ecosystems and works very closely on thinking about its sustainability goals because it's of course very well connected um within uh their business model so there there are those are sort of two sides of of this conversation and there's a lot that's in between and we're working on unpacking a bunch of those pieces right now that's pretty cool i love that i love seeing i just i love i love seeing these types of projects kind of come to play you know and and because they're so important you need to start shaping all of these guidelines and and and things that that all come into play to make sure that these investments go and seeing these corporations get excited about this because they're they're not just investing blindly they're investing into into projects that have you know a good success rate or potential for a great success rate and i think that's that's that's really really important when uh when you see it so um i love that i love that aspect can we talk about like maybe you mentioned literally like there's a couple projects that you're thinking about and and stuff like are there ongoing like when you guys do the guidelines and then the corporations like look at like the the partners look at this are there do you sort of recommend specific projects that are going on like do you have other partners on the ground who are doing these types of projects totally i mean i will say also again our role we see as really connecting a bunch of different pieces and there's there's so much amazing work that colleagues are doing in blue carbon and have been doing for a very long time i mean blue carbon a broader sort of excitement about blue carbon carbon has really just been the last less than 10 years maybe five five years of a lot of excitement and so i think yeah so we're very happy to be making a lot of connections um so we work a lot i mentioned the global mangrove alliance we work with those partners which is a group of of NGOs that have all come together to really be incredibly impactful in the way that they coordinate across all the work that they're doing in in mangroves which of course is one of the blue carbon ecosystems that we know the most about um or or we've we spend the most time i guess in yes in figuring out how to be very specific in carbon accounting for example but also in restoration conservation more broadly um and then we work with a bunch of innovators across the world um the form also has a platform for innovation called uplink and some of our uplink ocean innovators have been um are really doing amazing things in the blue carbon space so um thinking about how they can leverage technology for this space but also um very deeply connecting with communities so uh thinking about one distant imagery for example which is an innovator out of you out of UAE working on planting mangroves using drones but the really cool part of it is um connecting with communities very deeply about their goals their interests and working globally now with them and they build those drones out of pieces that can be um very easily fixed in within the community so that's super cool very impactful work can i just tell you something that's kind of interesting so my daughter uh she's uh she was in great a lot a great 10 a couple years ago she's in going she's a senior right now um but she looked at that she had to build the drone they're in an iSTEM program and they one of their projects was building a drone to do something for climate change and so a lot of people were building on the land drones to do regular tree planting like on land tree planting um and i told i told my daughter i'm like you should look at something different like what about coastal and you know obviously i'm an ocean guy and she wants to be a zoologist and i said have you thought about like what about flying drones can you do that and we picked up the UAE project like we we did a search looked up the the UAE project and she used that as a model to do her her drone prototype and we used it for that so so awesome yeah then we're looking at like and it was interesting because like you're looking at like like dispersal of seeds and how much that weighs and you know you have to it was it wasn't an easy project to do like to do those prototypes but to see how you know quickly the sort of just drones have like that that technology has has evolved so quickly to be able to use like different parts and you know he doesn't have to be a hundred thousand dollar machine you know it could be a two thousand dollar machine or less and be able to hold that payload to be able to disperse those seeds so um yeah it's it's uh it was really like sorry i just wanted to let you know i get excited about that when i heard that that's so cool oh my gosh oh i'm so excited to hear about that connection that's so fun and yeah i mean i think the the other cool part about drones for example is you know being able to better understand the um the landscape so you can understand what what does drainage look like here like yeah you know there are a bunch of different ways that the drone can be helpful which is cool um i think i mean i think the keeping too is of course this isn't really a tech challenge this is a no a people challenge of course yes but how can you be using technology to be supportive so it's super cool and what i love about them is that they're so engaged in the community so i mean i think they're such a poster child for how wonderful if you can be in engaging um at a community level and then also using technology to be supportive um yeah and so i think you know connecting with these sorts of partners is really powerful um and then the other piece that that um that we can you know unpack a little bit more potentially is just how we're connecting with the governments because i think again where the blue carbon action partnership it we really think about working at in sort of two different spaces one at a national level for how we can support governments in achieving their blue carbon ecosystem conservation and restoration ambitions and that that's purposely ambiguous what ambitions means because it could be anything it could be engaging um with the voluntary carbon market but really it's um it's soup a lot of focus right now on um how to include blue carbon ecosystems in their nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement so how will how how are how is each government helping to achieve our global climate goals and blue carbon ecosystems are part of that and then you know there's also um everything that's we're thinking about with our biodiversity goals as well so this would be a different treaty than our climate treaty yeah but our um our biodiversity treaty and thinking how do we achieve those goals and this is where these ecosystems come into play as well and then i think the key you know key part as and again why this is often cross ministerial work is that these are really important these ecosystems are really important to coastal communities and so um you know when we're thinking about livelihoods food security um fisheries fuel there all of those different pieces are important to communities that live around um blue carbon ecosystems so um yeah so there's a there's a lot to consider on a policy level and how governments can streamline and align those policies to then say okay we're we're sort of more set up for thinking about what types of investment can come in and where what how we want that investment to come in as well it's it's it's so interesting because my science brain's going off you're like yeah basically what you're talking about is you know making sure that we're putting in mangrove sea grasses salt marshes back to where maybe they were taking away at one point or identifying areas that may have changed where they could be really helpful and really good and have a great good chance of success so in my brain like i'm like this is easy you just oh here's where we can put a mangrove let's just you know plant them let's do it but then like the conservation brain goes off and that's where policy comes into play and like you said you're you're dealing with you know this is a global effort so you're talking about here are the global and international treaties that where these all fall under and then you have to go to each government and look at their plans and how you know how they're sort of adapting to these agreements and their policies and and it really becomes this web you know for each country's different each country's unique but not only within a national sort of policy standpoint but you're looking at even deeper and even smaller scale to local levels right regional and then local level so it can get really complex as you mentioned you know at that time what are the major challenges that you know even like the blue action the blue carbon action plan face or even like the corporate partners face even the government's face like what are the major challenges that you come up against that you have to overcome i guess because of the uniqueness of every country that's such a good point i mean i i think the what you just outlined is the first big challenge is just having all stakeholders sitting on the table together and that's that's really our goal is supporting through local partners we work with local NGOs to partner in each country and they are a secretariat that is the the glue that helps to just be additional human power in connecting all the pieces so right now we're partnering in india and the philippines and we're looking to continue to grow in southeast asia and then thinking about additional partners in latin america and africa um right now we are well we're thrilled to be working so far india's our first partner philippines our second partner both already have a lot that's happening in the space and so how do you help with coordinating and connecting a bunch of pieces um and that's what that's the work that they are all doing internally so again these are country driven national blue carbon action partnerships um it is the hard work of all of those that are in country that is making all of this magic in country surrounding blue carbon happen and that's making sure that um you have all of the relevant government partners in the room you have NGO partners that are doing a lot of the connecting with communities you have community leaders you have um those from the corporate side from finance and all of them coming into one space to say okay here are the big things we want to impact we need to be thinking about policy and that's likely uh you know much more of a ministerial driven process and then you have um a finance task force and that's um focus on once we better understand what the policy landscape is going to be how do we make sure that this is connecting to finance um the core for all of this is creating a cohesive national roadmap and that roadmap then is the vision that is set out by all those stakeholders to say okay here's we know this is where we want to go and this is how we want to get the finance to come in to support that as well so that's the that's the ultimate goal but it's also the challenges to make all those pieces happen but I will say I mean there's so much excitement around this space and because these these ecosystems are such super ecosystems I mean mangroves we talk about um the biodiversity a lot they're um they obviously are storing carbon but again the core benefits of these ecosystems is really in supporting these communities yeah and seagrasses are also as as we know um fisheries um nursery habitats um they're really important for a bunch of the species that we might see in other ecosystems later started out in seagrasses both of those um as well as salt marshes super important for yeah shoreline protection and for as we think about a climate change also they help us with thinking about how we adapt to climate change so um so I think though for all of those different reasons we have a lot of excitement enthusiasm from a variety of different stakeholders yeah for sure and and one of the things that you talk about shoreline security one of the things that always stands out especially in those areas that southeast asia area uh indian ocean area one of the things that that always stands out was the report that the UN came out with I think it was UNEP I'm not sure but that came out with after the 2004 tsunami that occurred in that in that area and they said areas that had you know healthy coral reefs healthy seagrass beds healthy mangroves did better uh against the tsunami than areas that didn't have you know they didn't have it like in healthy ecosystems like they either you know remove some some mangroves or remove like those those air those kind of um those kind of habitats that always stands out for me like that's so important especially in island nations smaller island nations and and things where you get a lot of ocean and you just never know especially during with climate change consequences you know sea level rise and storm surges and storms in general these these habitats become very important to these communities in many ways and then you talk about biodiversity you know protection all those all those all the like salt marses mangrove seagrasses are huge for biodiversity protection and and uh in conservation so it's uh it's so important to to have all those now we talk a lot about you know setting up these these projects and and identifying you know where there's potential for these projects to happen and i'm sure you have a lot of the projects actually that's a good question like do you have a lot of projects on the go now that you're either involved or you know somewhat a partner with uh you know as part of the action plan i'm sorry so um like on the ground individual projects yeah um so again i think this is where we are just thrilled to be partnering with wonderful organizations on the ground that are doing exactly that work and then we are really happy to be connecting that with the broader um discussion um or rather to be facilitating where it's not already happening but um yeah so i mean amazing projects so for example um the philippines just the philippines space agency just finalized their mangrove map um their national map and they did space is that's cool okay okay okay so fun so fun and um and they they just were they just um formally uh launched it in july and they did a bunch of really neat citizen science connecting with that so using their their imagery then connecting that with on the ground with local communities um with NGOs with academia um with government who was doing all the ground true thing of their their images and also doing a bit more detail so um to understand not just here's where we have mangroves but also um what type of mangroves do we have in those places so really meet connections with citizen science there and we're really excited to see how that all came to be and i think um particularly you know when you can be involving communities in the work that's happening at such a national level it's so exciting and really makes this connection so real um and then there's a lot of um really neat work again um in the philippines thinking about what's going to happen with some of the abandoned fish ponds that they have it's coming from some work that they've done in the past where uh fish ponds fish ponds was a larger policy um in the 80s and 90s and then some of those ponds are no longer functional and um there's an opportunity to think about if they could be restored to mangroves um and so a wonderful organization for example oceanist conservation who's working very closely with communities and and local governments um in thinking about how to do restoration there and not just to do restoration for some of these you know broader goals of biodiversity and shoreline protection but um and habitat and those sorts of things but thinking also okay so it was a fish pond we were thinking about food production with it how can that still be a place for food production and so pairing that restoration and conservation with um with a crab fishery for example and working with communities and thinking about um how to create that uh in concert with planting mangroves so a really really exciting opportunities that exist there um we're really excited to be um partnering with conservation international in um in indonesia and they are working a lot as you may know on climate um uh climate smart shrimp um so there's a there's a bunch of cool work i think that's really um thinking about these broader benefits that we can yeah uh the core benefits really that we can get from from these ecosystems oh absolutely it's so exciting just even just to think like an abandoned fish pond for that local community must just be you know they they must look at it and just be like we could do so much with that and they just may not have the resources at the time to to be able to do that or the time to be able to change that into like what you mentioned a potential crab fishery or you know something something different and so having that ability to regenerate that area into something that's more productive is probably really helpful for that community and brings a lot more excitement for that community so i think that's uh i'd love i'd love to to hear uh projects like that and you know we talk about you mentioned earlier you know putting the finance together and and and and the plan together the action plan as you go through to restore specific areas and um and and sort of regenerate areas and make it more productive for that local community but also be able to store more more carbon and and act in that in that manner there's got to be a plan for the long term right like these are like essential like spatial plans or business plans for the long term um how is that done in terms of one of trying to predict how the project's going to go but also adapt to changes that might happen in specific areas like local areas is there are there are there are other sort of plans being made to look ahead 10 5 10 15 years and so forth just such a good point i mean i think there's really important work also that's that partners are doing and thinking about okay so um we know that we're thinking about these amazing ecosystems as nature-based solutions for climate for example but how are they responding to climate change and where we'll see level rise be and these other pieces and how will that impact the longevity of a restoration site for example um and so i think yeah those are super important pieces um this this is also if you're thinking about a carbon credit coming into play this is also a super important space because you need to be able to show that the carbon that you're saying is going to be stored in a specific area is actually going to be stored there um for 30 years more yeah so um so that's important in the calculation of all of this and certainly has to happen and has to happen in projects um and and also um you know there's just all other elements that need to be considered in terms of like longer term development plans at least sorts of things that might be uh that might impact an area so in the work that we are connecting with these governments on and with these broader stakeholders part of the roadmap process is to be thinking holistically about all of this too and i think that's where that can be or that will be a really powerful piece of the hard work that they're all doing is um how how do we think about all the different elements that come into play not just these are areas that are that are ripe for restoration or we definitely want to conserve these but also what is the broader plan for what we've considered um important for this area in other sorts of diligence so yeah okay okay really really that's super super interesting um we've talked a lot about uh you know the the sort of projects of where you where some of the projects are happening and sort of that synergy between sort of the global efforts and the local efforts and the national efforts um there's one thing that that a term that we discussed before the interview like just with when we were planning out this interview is that the core benefits versus the co-benefits and i would love for you to explain what those mean and sort of how they play either against each other or for each other when we talk about you know doing this blue carbon action plan yeah i think this is a really important sort of um just a slight adjustment to our language in this that we see is really important and this is coming out of some really great work that colleagues have done um and just published on in terms of thinking um you know uh we just talk about co the sort of language to date has been these are blue carbon ecosystems we've sort of called them this because they all share this super power of sequestering carbon if yeah if we give them that opportunity um but really the carbon piece of it is but one of many of the reasons that we care about them and in fact if you are living amongst these ecosystems there there are these core benefits that you really care about and they're not really co-benefits like oh we love carbon and then we we care about these other things they're co-benefits the core benefits in fact are the things that we have been chatting about already so really caring about livelihoods food security um uh also thinking about the roles of different people in the household and and um you know people going out and cleaning particularly often women who are collecting from these ecosystems and adding to additional parts of um of the dinner plate for their families so um and there are these core benefits that we that are the center piece for these ecosystems and it just means that um taking a human centric perspective in what these these ecosystems mean for their communities local communities indigenous peoples um and and that's a center piece for how high quality projects can be developed too whether those are any positive or if they involve a carbon credit um is really thinking about the community leadership and again I will point to the amazing um organizations that we um are happy to collaborate with um that that do incredible work and really um the community leadership piece and connecting communities with the resources they need to understand where they want to take these um take action and what they might want to be thinking about for the planning for their ecosystems just so so so super important for making sure that um we're doing well in how we think about our our ecosystem um restoration and conservation I love that I love that um I have a couple more questions before before we in this interview this has been super super informative I like I'm sure you and I can talk about this forever but we do have uh you know a show to do and to keep with a certain constraint but we'll love to have you back on of course um you know but one thing that I always try to do is bring it back to the audience right is um you know this is uh the podcast is called how to protect the ocean this is you know the these types of projects when you get it so global um is very difficult for people individually to be like how can I contribute or how can I help within this sort of context right and so what would you suggest as someone who's working and seeing all that sort of the different drivers and all the different players that are in that are in this how can like people like in my audience be able to support or help or even find out more information it's like three really things that they can do to um get involved in some sort of way where they can help protect the ocean or even feel like they're contributing to helping to to protect the ocean yeah thanks santa and you know I thinking even about um your recent podcasts as we were talking about with the former mayor of sesolito and thinking um you well talked about where we'd lost a lot of wetlands in california in that um i'm sitting in california right now and so I think one of those pieces is you know just being aware of what's happening with your local ecosystems and and thinking about okay there's a new development going in they're planning for new development for example and being able to comment on what we what land use change we're seeing even in our local communities for that is so so important so um these ecosystems are amazing they're they can be super gooey they can smell like rotten eggs um they have super carbon rich soil um if you were to be trumping through them your boot might get caught and you would just face first and mud um they're sort of amazing and also not necessarily they're you know they don't have the same christmas as a coral reef sometimes depending right um but they're super important to how our coastlines work so even if you're not sitting in a place that's rich uh like mangroves out your front door or seagrass beds in front of you um or even a salt marsh and just thinking about what's happening in your local community is so important for um just being active in taking control of what we're doing with our own ecosystems nearby um and then I would say also just giving them more attention and following more of what's happening um is is really helpful and uh thinking about how we're using our dollars as consumers in terms of the types of companies that we purchase from um and and I guess related to that is also you know I think um I really like to think a lot about ocean optimism um and how can we be celebrating successes and how can we be rewarding behavior that we think is really uplifting the ocean and so I think that can go across so many different spaces so that could be um you know investing your tourism dollars in a place where you think that there's really excellent work that's happening in blue carbon ecosystems it could be purchasing um purchasing your seafood in a way that you know is valuing blue carbon ecosystems um valuing ecosystem management more more broadly and and you know engaging with companies that you think are doing a good job too all of these things really speak volumes yeah absolutely I think I think you're in one of the things that really popped up that that you mentioned is you know just being active in in your local area and finding out sort of just natural areas and keeping them natural you know wherever possible you know we talked a lot about restoring mangroves and sea grasses and salt marshes at one point you know the world the coastlines probably have wherever there could be mangroves or sea grasses or or salt marshes naturally there were and a lot of the times they were either taken out uh for building you know sort of human centric areas and and we lost a lot of those over time and and it's a lot more expensive to put them back in than it is to take them out or it is to just conserve them and so where you see mangroves where you see where no of of sea grasses and where you know salt marshes do your best as a community to keep them keep them in place and and I think that's uh that's really important a lot of the times they sneak them in there they sneak development in there and I mean I'm not sure if you're aware Emily but there's uh this by time this podcast airs it may be past the time but you know we just did an episode a couple a week ago or so about the Florida state parks and how they're trying to develop golf courses and resorts and on state parks and in Florida and you're just like these parks don't need that you know they're an attraction in itself and they're loved by Floridians and all of a sudden just under the noses they tried to to get it go and you had the National Audubon Society and all these other organizations that are you know making light of uh and bringing awareness to these uh to these public comment areas where you can actually have a say and I think it's working because they're they've already delayed at this point in time of this recording they were delaying um public comment times and public meetings because I think there's been a lot of people who are like no we cannot we cannot have this so I think but like you said being aware of the areas of what you're around what's around you in the areas and trying to protect those natural areas I think is really important so that's uh that's a good way of you know we already have some blue you may have some blue carbon areas around you you just don't even know it yet so I think that's great right that's right and I think um public comment is such an amazing tool that I don't know if if how you know your neighbor may not be aware of public comment so like go just like chatting about it if you have like a neighborhood gathering or something like that so valuable yeah yeah really amazing to you absolutely Emily this has been absolutely fantastic to have to have you on the podcast uh and being able to learn more about the blue carbon action network and the projects that you guys are helping and partnering and finding out all about the intricate details I think it's real important I know these projects go on and some people tend not to know about them so now my audience knows about them and I appreciate you coming on and explaining and I know you're doing this early in the morning California time so I really do appreciate it and I'm sorry to get you up so so early to do this but I definitely appreciate it and it's been so much fun to have you on I'd love to have you back on to discuss more of BCAP in the future and to get updates on some of those projects that are that are ongoing right now and some of the successes that they face in the future thanks so much Andrea it's been such a pleasure yeah I really appreciate it you bet thank you thank you Emily for joining me here on the how to project the ocean podcast it was great to have you on so much information I love the fact that there's so many levels to this and it can be very complicated but really the core part of this is let's start making coastal habitats productive and making sure that it hits those core benefits that for for those coastal communities that will benefit from that their households will benefit it's not just individuals not just a a sector of that village or that area that community it's everybody benefits and I think that's really important and it goes to show the complexities of these types of projects and why it's so hard to get them going I even love the fact that you know Emily started mentioning how you can get involved and how you can help support these projects in natural areas in your area we talked a lot about you know looking around your area it doesn't matter where you live where you live in Canada the UK the states Latin America Australia Africa look around and look at where your natural areas are and protect those areas you know work with organizations work with you know the your governments and stuff to ensure that they know that they are that those natural areas are important to you and you know when there are areas or there are times where you can when you can participate in public comment participate you know that's the the really important thing so it's um you know huge awareness campaign for yourself like see what's local see what's you know national you know regional you know whatever that might be and then look at international and be able to participate in those so there's so many different levels that you can participate on and be aware of what's happening and then talk to other people about it that's the big thing it's really knowledge and gaining that knowledge and you know one of the things you can do is you can start you know if you just this is your first episode you can start listening to the podcast and you know I talk about different projects that are going on I talk about different ocean news and how you can participate and so forth and I think that's important that's important to have and to to have for a very long time in the future we do these episodes three times a week so follow subscribe whatever you need to do uh and uh and support the podcast so I want thank you for joining me and for Emily for joining me on the podcast it was really great to have her on and I'd love I can't wait to have her back on to talk more about the blue carbon action partnership that gets a lot after a while for me to say be cap but I'm really happy to have Emily on can't wait to have her back on and if you have any questions you can leave a comment on Spotify YouTube you can hit me up on on on Instagram at how to protect the ocean so many different ways are getting holding me I'm on LinkedIn as well so feel free to connect with me there there's just so many ways so I and I let's I will listen to you in any kind of way so that's the whole point of this is to start the conversation by presenting you the information love to hear your feedback that's really really important to me but thank you so much for joining me that's it for today's podcast so thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast have a great day we'll talk to you next time and happy conservation
