In 2019, The Pew Charitable Trusts worked with Belize and Costa Rica on updating nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement to include protections for coastal wetlands as nature-based solutions to climate change, actions that encouraged other countries within the Latin America and Caribbean region to pursue similar commitments. In 2023, Pew added partnerships in Jamaica, Honduras, and Panama in support of each country’s inclusion of coastal wetlands protections in their next NDCs.
By 2021, Belize and Costa Rica had made ambitious conservation commitments with Pew’s technical policy and research support. Belize pledged to increase its mangrove protections by 12,000 hectares (29,653 acres), restore 4,000 additional hectares (9,884 acres) of mangroves by 2030, and develop a national seagrass policy. And Costa Rica committed to protect all coastal wetlands recorded in its national inventory, restore priority coastal wetland areas by 2025, and explore innovative financial mechanisms for coastal wetland conservation and restoration.