Blue forests are coastal and marine ecosystems that sequester carbon and provide a multitude of ecosystem services. These services and benefits can be harnessed as nature-based solutions to  environmental challenges and support a sustainable blue economy. 

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Blue carbon refers to the carbon stored in the biomass and sediments of blue forests. Click the "learn more" button below to explore the fundamentals of blue forests.

A critical benefit and value that communities can harness from blue forests is coastal blue carbon, which is the carbon stored in the biomass and sediments of marine ecosystems such as mangrove forests, seagrass meadows and saltwater marshes. These ecosystems can sequester and store more carbon per unit area than many terrestrial forests, thereby their conservation and restoration can play a vital role in meeting global goals towards mitigation of climate change .

Coastal blue carbon methods were developed and advanced for assessing carbon stocks and emission factors in mangroves, tidal salt marshes, and seagrass meadows. Standard methods were developed for field measurement and analysis of blue carbon stocks and flux in these environments. For more detailed information on existing blue carbon methodologies and approaches, click "learn more" below.

The valuation of ecosystem services is a way of evaluating what society is willing to trade off to conserve a particular ecosystem service by either quantitatively or qualitatively assessing its value. Harnessing the value of blue forests ecosystems often begins with data gap analysis to increase the understanding of the threats and benefits these ecosystems provide in a particular location.

Healthy blue forests provide key ecosystem services that support coastal biodiversity. These provisions include: nursery habitats for fish, shellfish, invertebrates, and other marine and terrestrial species; filtration of pollutants and excess nutrients in coastal waters; and feeding grounds for migratory birds and fish species​. When multiple blue forests grow together within the same area, these ecological functions can be even more impactful, often increasing the richness of biodiversity and abundance of fish along coastlines.

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Mangrove ecosystems, for example, are some of the most productive and biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet. They serve as important habitats for fish, sharks, manatees, crabs and other important species. In Ecuador, Conservation International aims to work more specifically with two crab harvesting associations and fishermen living inside El Morro Wildlife reserve in the implementation of alternatives to reduce over-harvesting of mangrove resources, while ensuring access and a good distribution of economic benefits from mangroves management. 

Restoration, or the act of bringing an ecosystem back into, as nearly as possible, its original condition, can be used as a tool to return lost forest in order to achieve the objectives of sustainable mangrove management and can be necessary when a forest can no longer self-renew. Techniques for blue forests restoration depend on site characteristics such as soil depth, availability of propagules,  and pressure from humans and other forces on the forest. Though plantation productivity has been shown to decline with age, given the chance, restored mangroves, for example, may develop into mature forests with many of the structural and functional characteristics of mature mangrove systems. In Kenya, low diversity mangrove planting has given way to higher diversity forests, provided the reforested area is not harvested.