Mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, saltwater marshes – these and other ‘blue forests’ are vital to coastal and island communities around the world

Methodologies and Approaches
Methodologies sets out the procedures to follow and the steps to take to define the boundaries goals and scope of your project. There are many different methodologies and approaches for carbon accounting and ecosystem service valuation that have been used by the Blue Forests Project partners to provide evidence-based experience that supports replication, up-scaling and adoption of Blue Forests concepts by the international community and the GEF.
Methodologies for understanding blue forests can be project-scale, national or international. Guidance and methodologies can support business planning for blue forests ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. This builds appropriate policy pathways to support such actions in the long term. Management of tidal forests (including mangroves), tidal marshes and seagrass meadows are of interest to national and international climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. While their conservation and restoration has been promoted for many decades, the renewed interest in their role in coastal resilience in times of rising sea levels as well as the most recent “new” ecosystem service, namely carbon sequestration and storage, have triggered the commissioning of several scientific as well as policy guidance documents furthering understanding of these ecosystems.
