Mangrove and Seagrass Mapping Informs Jamaica’s Climate Policy

Science and policy partners explore inclusion of blue carbon ecosystems in country’s climate commitments

Article By: Peter Edwards, Ph.D. Read time:
Projects: Advancing Coastal Wetlands Conservation

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Mangrove and Seagrass Mapping Informs Jamaica’s Climate Policy
Under a blue sky, a rowboat is tied to a tree in a small bay flanked by mangroves on either side.
Coastal wetlands, including mangroves like these in Jamaica, help communities mitigate and adapt to climate change, such as buffering storm surges. These ecosystems also help slow shore erosion and provide feeding and nursery grounds for a variety of birds, fish, and mammals.
Camilo Trench University of the West Indies

Seagrass meadows, mangrove forests, and salt marshes—all types of coastal wetlands—are the only marine ecosystems that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change officially recognizes as helping governments to meet their climate change mitigation reporting commitments. In addition, mangroves and seagrass beds protect communities from flooding caused by storm surges, help to limit erosion, and provide nursery and breeding grounds for important fish species. Jamaica is one country seeing the benefits of coastal wetlands as nature-based solutions to climate change. In 2017, Jamaica ratified the Paris Agreement, the landmark international treaty that came out of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, and the country submitted its first required nationally determined contribution (NDC) to show how it intends to meet the goals of the treaty. Jamaica will submit an updated NDC in 2025, which, because of the Paris Agreement’s ratcheting mechanism, is expected to include more ambitious climate targets, such as mangrove and seagrass conservation.

How can coastal wetland science inform climate policy?

In advance of submitting that updated NDC, Jamaica is improving its mapping of seagrass beds and mangroves and its carbon stock estimates for these ecosystems. Information on the status and extent of seagrass and mangroves, along with carbon stock data, is crucial to advancing conservation efforts and could help support the inclusion of these ecosystems in Jamaica’s updated NDC.

A person in a blue jacket is dwarfed by an expansive tangle of brown mangrove roots and trees topped with green leaves.
A researcher from the University of the West Indies measures the height of mangrove trees in Jamaica. The country is collecting data to map its mangrove forests and seagrass meadows to determine how much carbon the coastal wetlands are storing—information that can inform climate actions and conservation efforts.
Camilo Trench University of the West Indies

The Pew Charitable Trusts is supporting a project by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Centre for Marine Sciences at the University of the West Indies (UWI) to carry out these mapping and carbon stock efforts. This data will then be provided to the Jamaican government to inform policy and management decisions. The project also seeks to engage with key stakeholders—such as nongovernmental organizations (which steward protected areas and manage fish sanctuaries), researchers, private sector environmental consultants, and government officials—to build support for the inclusion of coastal wetlands in Jamaica’s international climate commitments, including NDCs.

“The Nature Conservancy is pleased to be providing technical support to the government of Jamaica as it seeks to update its nationally determined contributions,” said Donna Oniss-Blake, Jamaica program director for The Nature Conservancy.  “The outcomes of this project include providing updated information on the spatial extent of mangrove forests and seagrass beds, which form part of Jamaica’s blue carbon ecosystems. It is envisioned that this scientific information can be incorporated into Jamaica’s process for updating its nationally determined contributions.

Mapping workshop and project launch

TNC Jamaica, in collaboration with UWI’s Centre for Marine Sciences, hosted a workshop April 17-18 with participants from government agencies responsible for climate policy, forestry, fisheries, and coastal management, along with representatives from academia, coastal marine experts from non-governmental organizations, and private sector environmental consultants.

A large group of people poses for a photo, flanked by posters.
Participants gather during an April 17-18 workshop hosted by The Nature Conservancy and the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, to help improve mapping of the country’s seagrass and mangrove ecosystems and the carbon stocks those habitats hold.
The Pew Charitable Trusts

The goal of the workshop was to gather feedback from local partners of the proposed mangrove and seagrass mapping research and discuss how the data could be used to inform policy. In addition, the workshop attendees worked with the joint TNC and UWI research team to help identify sampling locations for the mapping work.

A square of white and black plastic tubing tied with orange string forming an X sits atop a lush field of underwater seagrass.
To effectively map seagrass meadows, researchers in Jamaica used transect lines that were laid across seagrass meadows, with quadrats (above) placed atop the seagrass at intervals to assess the health of seagrass, including that in Discovery Bay.
University of the West Indies Centre for Marine Sciences

This participatory process should help ensure the accuracy and usefulness of the data to be collected while allowing the research team to incorporate valuable local expertise and knowledge into the project. Already, participants’ feedback at the workshop helped TNC and UWI create a comprehensive research plan for their field work.

“The Centre for Marine Sciences at the University of the West Indies Mona campus is pleased to be collaborating with our project partners by providing field-based carbon storage assessments of representative mangroves and seagrasses around the island of Jamaica,” said professor Mona Webber, head of the Department of Life Sciences at UWI’s Mona campus. “The combination of carbon data [determined using internationally accepted methods] with updated maps should assist Jamaica to include blue carbon stocks as part of its nationally determined contributions.”

Outcomes from the successful workshop will not only feed into Jamaica’s decision to protect its blue carbon coastal ecosystems in its 2025 updated NDC, but it also will help ensure that the country’s mangroves and seagrass remain healthy and intact so that they can continue to provide climate benefits.

Peter Edwards works on The Pew Charitable Trusts’ conservation science program. 

Article
Projects: Advancing Coastal Wetlands Conservation
Topics: Ocean Conservation
Tags: Blue carbon, Climate, Ecosystems, Habitat protection, Mangroves, Salt marsh & Seagrass
Experts: Peter Edwards, Ph.D.
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