Imperial Beach's Wildcoast Honored For Efforts To Combat Climate Change

Speaker 1: 00:01 And Environmental Group from Imperial Beach is getting recognized for its effort to combat climate change. The nonprofit wild coast was recently awarded a 2019 keeling curve prize for its mangrove forest restoration. And it's a project off the coast of Baja California as part of KPBS climate change desk. Midday edition host Jade Heineman spoke with conservation director Zach plop or about the project. Speaker 2: 00:27 Well, Zach, welcome to the program. Thank you. So first tell me what is a mangrove? So mangrove is a, it's a blue carbon ecosystem. So it's a ecosystem that grows in a, in a saltwater environment, um, either subtropical or tropical areas. It's a tree and it's very unique to some certain parts of the world. Northwest Mexico being one of those. Speaker 3: 00:46 So how are they able to remove carbon from the air and store it? Speaker 2: 00:50 So just like any plant, CBC, it intakes carbon, but with mangroves have, and especially these desert mangroves in Mexico is this root system, very intricate root system and a large soil substrate around it. So it takes the carbon in through its leaves deposit. It's through its root system into this sediment below it. And it has these vast areas of the sediment around them where it stores all this carbon. That's why those ecosystems, those mangroves in northwest Mexico are so effective at carbon sequestration. And the science shows that these mangrove desert mangroves in Mexico sequester up to five times more carbon than tropical mangroves. Hmm. And so how important are mangroves to climate change policy? So in terms of policy, not enough yet. We're just learning how effective that these ecosystems are. We're trying to integrate them into policy in Mexico. And then there's similar ecosystems like seagrasses and salt marsh in California that actually can also play a big role. We're trying to integrate those into policy as well. Speaker 3: 01:45 Do you have a sense of how much carbon a, this mangrove off of the coast of Baja California is actually taking in? Speaker 2: 01:52 Right. So the 39,000 acres of mangroves that we've looked at in the Gulf of California and, and Magdalene Magdalena Bay and Southern Baja California store about 19.5 million metric tons of carbon. That's Oklahoman CEO, about 1 million peoples annual carbon emissions. Speaker 3: 02:07 Wow. So while coast has been working with the Mexican government on this restoration project, what does all of this entail? Speaker 2: 02:14 Right, so we've been working with the Mexican national government, federal government and the Mexican National Park Service essentially since 2008 to set aside these mangrove areas for conservation. So they can't be owned and by law they're actually protected. They can't be cut down. That doesn't mean that they're not cut down. And that doesn't mean that there's land uses around these mangroves that can have an impact. So we're buffering these areas. We're actually getting concessions for these mangroves to put them under the management of the park service, essentially creating protected areas where these mangroves are, where they weren't protected as well. We're also working with Griffith University in Australia to do all the science. So it's a tri national effort between wild coast, which is a u s in Mexico based organization, the Mexican National Government and institutions in Australia to do the research, to show how much there is and to show what it would mean if we stopped the degradation of these forests. Speaker 2: 03:03 And there's also an economic component to this project too, right? Yeah. So the, the amount of carbon that that is stored here and that would continue to be sequestered if we can leave these mangroves alone. So about half a million dollars on the voluntary carbon market. And they're also, these mangroves are also a basis for commercial fisheries for ecotourism. So there's a lot of other benefits other than the carbon sequestration value of them. So Zack, aside from taking in carbon, what are some of the other benefits that mangroves a have? Right. So they have incredible benefits for wildlife and that's really why we got started protecting these areas. They, a lot of these areas are the world's last end developed California gray whale breeding lagoons. They're critical stops in the Pacific flyway for migratory birds. They're feeding areas for sea turtles. They're also at the basis of a lot of commercial fisheries that go to international markets in the context of climate change. Speaker 2: 03:49 We're also seeing that these mangroves buffer coastal communities against more intense hurricanes and sea level rise. So mangroves are helping sequester carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change. But our mangroves also at risk because of climate change itself. Absolutely. So in areas that mangroves don't have in place to migrate to. So with sea level rise, we're going to see coastal ecosystems move if they can, if there's development or agriculture or other land uses right up against where these mangroves are, they will not be able to migrate and they will actually be squeezed out by sea level rise. So it's not only important that we protect the mangroves that are there now, but areas around it to allow them to move over time. If mangroves can be restored as you're doing in Baja, does that mean they can also be planted anywhere in the world to help guard against climate change? Speaker 2: 04:35 Maybe not anywhere in the world. They grow in very particular particular climate. So it needs to be warm. There needs to be certain levels of salinity. But what we're looking at is restored reforestation projects in Mexico. So we just got a grant from the United Nations Development Program to restore about a hundred acres of degraded mangroves in a place called San Ignacio Lagoon. That's the world's last undeveloped California gray whale breeding ground, also home to these mangrove ecosystems. So we're actually looking to reform a certain areas and that project's very scalable to other areas in Baja, the Gulf of California and throughout, um, tropical parts of the world where these mangroves grow. So what does this keeling curve prize award mean for wild coast? So this keeling curve prize shows recognition of our project. We're onto a great idea. We're getting a lot of exposure because of winning this award, but we're also getting $25,000 in funding. Speaker 2: 05:22 Then it's going to help us advance the protection of these mangroves. It's going to allow us to continue to do the science and then we're also gonna use that funding to go through the accreditation process. We have a project that's accredited and the voluntary carbon markets, we can actually work with the Mexican government to sell carbon credits that can then be reinvested in the management conservation of these areas. All right. I've been speaking with Zach plop or conservation director at wild coast. Zach, thank you so much. Thank you for more coverage from the KPBS climate change desk. Go to k pbs.org/climate change. Speaker 4: 06:00 [inaudible].