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“Blue carbon” is carbon captured by coastal and ocean ecosystems. These natural environments reduce the atmospheric impact of greenhouse gases. In November 2024, institutions from Latin America and the Caribbean involved in environmental research and management took part in a three-day workshop on blue carbon and mangroves.

This second annual Regional Blue Carbon Monitoring, Reporting and Verification Mechanism (MRV) workshop was held at Courtyard by Marriott in Port-of-Spain in November 2024. UWI’s St Augustine Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (StACIE) are the coordinators of the MRV and hosted the event.

Mangroves sequester carbon from the atmosphere. According to the Blue Carbon Initiative, the carbon is absorbed "in the biomass of plants (tree trunks, stems and leaves), below ground in the plant biomass (root systems and rhizomes), and in the carbon-rich organic soils typical to these ecosystems". Any carbon captured this way is known as blue carbon.

In addition, mangroves protect coastlines, dampen storm surges and reduce the impact of climate-related events on coastal communities. They also foster biodiversity, like fish breeding grounds.

‘A true network of professionals’ from the Caribbean and Latin America

The workshop included teams from Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Suriname, Panama and Colombia. They represented institutions like the Institute for Marine and Coastal Research (Invemar), Colombia; UWI Solutions for Developing Countries (UWI SODECO), Jamaica, and Audubon, Panama.

Speaking at the workshop, Gerard Alleng, Climate Change Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), expressed the hope that they would create “a true network of professionals, a core bunch of people who know about mangroves, who know how to investigate it, know how to explain carbon sequestration”.

The IDB are administering the MRV under the financing of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Blue Carbon Fund.

Jorge Hoyos Santillán, Principal Investigator on the Blue Natural Heritage project and research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Chile, endorsed the in-person format: “The workshop's greatest value emerged through networking with fellow researchers, revealing opportunities to both expand our current research and explore new funding sources. These connections open doors for larger scale collaborative projects.”

Through a translator and while switching between Spanish and English, the teams spent the first day presenting their methodologies in mangrove studies. Dr Graham King, Director of StACIE, said, “the university is running a kind of umbrella project which links these five blue carbon projects.”

Laser scanning to measure carbon sequestered trees

The MRV’s focus is to measure each restoration project’s effectiveness at storing carbon and to agree upon a common approach. This will include using a terrestrial laser scanning approach to measuring carbon sequestered in trees. Researchers ascertain the biomass of carbon by measuring the height and diameter of the tree and applying a remote sensing technique called Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR). Previously, these measures could not be done without cutting down the tree.

With UWI leading the way with this technique, Dr King explained that “we want this to become a standard way — an improved way by which you can actually verify the carbon sequestered in mangroves.”

Funding was, of course, a vital talking point in the discussions. In 2022, The UWI and the IDB signed a Technical Co-operation Agreement to fund the MRV system. IDB administers the funding under the DEFRA Blue Carbon Fund. The participants learned that their funding has been increased, but at the same time, their deadline has been brought up to March 2026.

“We are on a deadline,” explained Alleng. “We are all under pressure to achieve.” He added, “So, good news: more money; bad news: less time.”

The participants spent the rest of the workshop discussing protocols, baseline mapping and carbon stock analysis, and how gender equality and social exclusion indicators relate to their work.

One workshop highlight was a field trip to explore the Caroni Swamp by boat, bringing to life the impact of the researchers’ work through Trinidad and Tobago’s own blue carbon ecosystem.

The next step for MRV will be publication. Hoyos Santillán anticipates “collaborative scientific papers exploring the main drivers of carbon stock magnitude and allocation in mangroves from the region” will be a main product of the discussions. The participants also discussed plans for the MRV’s upcoming wetlands conference.


Dixie-Ann Belle is a freelance writer, editor and proofreader.