JAKARTA - Indonesia encourages the world, especially G20 member countries to manage blue carbon ecosystems in a sustainable manner. In the long term, good and maintained carbon sequestration and storage will help efforts to reduce the impact of climate change.
This is stated by Deputy Minister for Maritime Affairs and Natural Resources, Ministry of National Development Planning /National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), J. Rizal Primana, in a Seminar entitled “Blue Carbon: Enabling Conservation and Financial Capital” at the Nusa Dua Convention Center, Bali, 8 August 2022.
The potential for blue carbon in Indonesia reaches 3.4 Giga Ton (GT) or about 17% of the world’s blue carbon. Its distribution is in coastal ecosystems such as mangrove forests, seagrass beds and peatlands in coastal areas. These coastal ecosystems can help absorb carbon emissions in the atmosphere and oceans, then store them in leaves, stems, branches, roots, and underlying sediments.
If the management continues to be strengthened with adaptation and mitigation towards climate resilience, it is believed that Indonesia will contribute more to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 29 percent nationally, and 41 percent globally until 2030.
The area of seagrass beds in Indonesia is the largest in the world, up to 293,465-875,957 Ha, and can absorb carbon up to 119.5 tons of carbon per hectare. Likewise, Indonesia’s mangroves, which cover an area of 3.3 million hectares, are the largest in the world, and are capable of storing carbon as much as 950 tons of carbon per hectare.
“In the future, we want to ensure that the Blue Carbon ecosystem can enter the NDC (National Determined Contribution). Of course, it must go through sustainable Blue Carbon development planning, and must be supported by the commitment of all parties. To achieve this, we need a framework that can accommodate all parties, ” said Rizal. (LM)