Why coastal wetlands?
Coastal wetlands such as mangroves, saltmarsh, seagrass and kelp have some hidden talents. They are nurseries for fish and other marine species; they buffer us from storms; but what many people don’t know is they are also climate superheros.
Habitat
Coastal wetlands provide critical habitat for many of Australia’s most iconic and most threatened species. In Australia an estimated 1,010 threatened species (56% of all listed species) are found within the coastal zone (within 50 kilometers inland of the coastline).
Fisheries
Coastal ecosystems act as the nurseries of the ocean, providing protective breeding grounds that underpin our global fisheries, food supply and economic stability.
Carbon
Mangroves, seagrass, kelp forests and salt marshes are beginning to be recognized for their outsized role in climate change mitigation. Compared to terrestrial forests, these ‘blue carbon’ ecosystems draw down carbon from our atmosphere and lock it away underground — at rates up to 10X those of tropical rainforests. Australian saltmarsh, mangrove and seagrass habitats are estimated to hold 12% of the world’s blue carbon soil stocks.
Social and cultural value
87% of Australians live within 50km of the coast — our shorelines and our oceans are hardwired into the Australian psyche. Indigenous Australian have deep cultural connections to the coast stretching back tens of thousands of years and intimate understandings of how to care for it that have been largely undervalued since colonisation.
The Challenge
Despite being such planetary powerhouses, vital to local economies, biodiversity and our climate, coastal wetlands can be delicate. Their fragility and importance has been overlooked by decision-makers since European arrival, and as a result Australia has lost between 47 to 78% of saltmarsh and mangrove extent, and 20 to 26% of seagrass meadows.
The good news is, restoration is possible. The challenge is that it is expensive, and that regulatory complexity has impeded the scale and pace of coastal restoration. These same hurdles have limited opportunities for Indigenous owned and led projects to date.
Our work
Conservation International Australia is mobilising finance for coastal wetlands protection and restoration, and helping shape the markets that will see this finance deployed fairly and equitably.
Shark Bay
Shark Bay lies on the western tip of Western Australia. Remote and wild, it is believed to be one of the world’s largest seagrass meadows which, in turn, supports one of the world’s largest remaining populations of dugongs.
This is the traditional home of the Malgana people, and of ‘Tidal Moon’ a Malgana-owned sea cucumber company who are revitalising Australia’s oldest trade.
Tidal Moon is working hard to restore the seagrasses of Shark Bay after a quarter was lost in a devastating heatwave in 2011.
Conservation International Australia are partnering with Tidal Moon to build the financial foundations to sustain and accelerate both the restoration and the nature-positive business into the future.
Building frameworks for robust and fair nature finance
The carbon and biodiversity our coastal wetlands harbour have economic value. By developing crediting mechanisms for projects that restore or protect carbon and biodiversity, we can attract the finance to care for them long term. Conservation International Australia is contributing to the development of the methods for enabling this finance flow, to make sure they are scientifically robust and reflective of real gains for nature and for people. We are prioritising the incorporation of inputs from Indigenous resource managers to the methods, to make sure they are culturally relevant, practical, and affordable.
Our global backing
We launched the world’s first carbon credits from a coastal wetland in Colombia in 2022, and have stayed at the forefront of shaping this growing market to be fair, robust and based on best science.
A global priority for Conservation International, shared by Conservation International Australia, is supporting Indigenous partners to be the directors of conservation and restoration finance, for projects that deliver on the priorities of those that steward and rely on these places. We do this through:
- Direct technical and financial support
- Facilitating knowledge exchange
- Convening international forums to coordinate policy approaches internationally
- Generating and sharing world class science such as through the International Blue Carbon Institute, to accelerate the protection and restoration of blue carbon ecosystems