Unesco World Heritage forests: India’s Sundarbans among 5 sites with highest ‘blue carbon’ globally

What is the News?

Researchers at UNESCO, the World Resources Institute and the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN) have released a new assessment of greenhouse gas volumes emitted from and absorbed by forests in UNESCO World Heritage sites.

What are the key findings of the report on UNESCO World Heritage Forests?

The researchers have assessed the gross and net carbon absorbed and emitted by 257 UNESCO World Heritage forests between 2001 and 2020.

They found that these 257 sites stored approximately 13 billion tonnes of carbon. If all this stored carbon were to be released into the atmosphere as CO2, it would be akin to emitting 1.3 times the world’s total annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.

The researchers have found that 10 of 257 forests emitted more carbon than they captured between 2001 and 2020 due to different anthropogenic disturbances and pressures.

The reasons for emissions to be greater than sequestration included clearance of land for agriculture, the increasing scale and severity of wildfires due to drought, as well as extreme weather phenomena such as hurricanes.

What about Indian Sundarbans?

According to the research, India’s Sundarbans National Park is among five sites that have the highest blue carbon stocks globally.

The other four sites are the Bangladeshi portion of the Sundarbans, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, Everglades National Park in the United States and the Banc d’Arguin National Park in Mauritania.

Note: Blue carbon is an organic carbon that is mainly obtained from decaying plant leaves, wood, roots and animals. It is captured and stored by coastal and marine ecosystems.

What are the suggestions given by the report?

Strong and sustained protection of UNESCO World Heritage sites and their surrounding landscapes to ensure their forests could continue to act as strong carbon sinks and stores for future generations.

Maintaining and strengthening ecological connectivity through improved landscape management. 

Integrating the continued protection of UNESCO World Heritage sites into international, national and local climate, biodiversity and sustainable development strategies.

Source: This post is based on the article “Unesco World Heritage forests: India’s Sundarbans among 5 sites with highest ‘blue carbon’ globally” published in Down To Earth on 27th October 2021.