By: Allen Glen Gil ‘26 MFS
The Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative (ELTI) held a Blue Carbon Ecosystems Workshop at Yale University from October 21–23, 2024, with funding from the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture (YCNCC) and the Yale Forest Forum (YFF).
The event highlighted the vital role of blue carbon ecosystems—coastal habitats like mangroves and seagrass beds—in combating climate change. These ecosystems sequester significant amounts of carbon, protect coastlines, support biodiversity, and sustain livelihoods, making them a focus for climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.
Globally, countries are integrating blue carbon into their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. The voluntary carbon market is also driving investment in blue carbon projects, presenting new opportunities for conservation efforts.
ELTI is building local stakeholder capacity to conserve and restore blue carbon ecosystems through its training and development initiatives. Specifically, ELTI’s Indonesia Program—implemented by a local nongovernmental organization, Blue Forests (Yayasan Hutan Biru)—has expanded its course offerings on mangroves and blue carbon and is establishing a mangrove-oriented training landscape, complete with a fully developed curriculum and demonstration sites in East Kalimantan, Indonesia.
The workshop aimed to link the Yale School of the Environment (YSE) community with ELTI’s blue carbon initiatives in Indonesia, foster research exchange, collaborate on a global mangrove online course, and incubate a proposal for the Yale Planetary Solutions (YPS) Seed Grant funding.
Day one covered sessions on Indonesia’s blue carbon landscape, cross-sectoral perspectives in blue carbon research and practice, and relevant Yale-based studies. Speakers detailed challenges, breakthroughs, and opportunities in blue carbon conservation and restoration.
Blue Carbon in Indonesia
Indonesia is home to a quarter of the world’s mangroves, but it faces significant mangrove loss due to aquaculture, palm oil plantations, and urban development. To address this, ELTI has partnered with Blue Forests in 2023 to implement capacity-building programs focusing on mangrove conservation and sustainable livelihoods.
The workshop opened as Lely Puspitasari presented the Blue Forests-ELTI Indonesia Program, which includes training and leadership programs on ecological mangrove rehabilitation, mangrove non-timber forest products, and sustainable ecotourism. The program likewise implemented public consultations, roadmap discussions, and policy dialogues—all shaping Indonesia’s blue carbon strategies.
Benjamin Brown of Blue Forests then discussed the challenges, uncertainties, and opportunities for operationalizing blue carbon in Indonesia. He highlighted the potential of sustainable silvofishery systems, hydrodynamic mapping to rehabilitate degraded mangroves, and harnessing mangrove associate systems to facilitate inland mangrove migration and deliver local socio-economic benefits.
Benjamin Brown shares his experiences on the operationalization of blue carbon in Indonesia at Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library. Photo: Allen Gil
Hasna Nikmah of the World Bank outlined the mangrove governance landscape in Indonesia. She presented the National Mangrove Rehabilitation Agenda, which aims to restore 600,000 hectares of mangroves. She also showcased the Mangrove for Coastal Resilience (M4CR) Project—a joint initiative by the Indonesian Government and the World Bank—to support the pilot development of a blue carbon program in North Kalimantan.
Breakthroughs in Blue Carbon
The workshop then showcased diverse perspectives and experiences from academia, the private sector, and NGOs. Daniel Friess (Tulane University), Jacob Bukoski (Carbon Direct and Oregon State University), and Stefanie Simpson (The Nature Conservancy) shared insights on the practice and research of blue carbon ecosystems.
The workshop then featured a series of talks on Yale-based research on blue carbon. Mary Beth Decker discussed the role of zooplankton like jellyfish in carbon sequestration, while Noah Planavsky highlighted how blue carbon ecosystems enhance ocean alkalinity, increasing their carbon storage capacity.
Lidya Tarhan explored how bioturbating animals, such as crabs, improve sediment oxygenation and carbon cycling, while Derrick Vaughn presented his collaborative work on the Blue Carbon Timescale Network.
Other speakers included YSE doctoral students Mingyu Zhang and Jonathan Gewritzman, who examined alkalinity generation and methane emissions from mangroves, respectively.
YSE doctoral candidate Jonathan Gewritzman showcases his research on mangrove methane emissions. Photo: Allen Gil
The Mangrove Online Course
ELTI then presented its proposed online course titled, ‘Mangroves: Conservation, Sustainable Use, and Restoration’. Aimed towards a set of diverse learners, the course strives to promote the understanding of key mangrove ecological principles, conservation and restoration strategies, participatory stakeholder engagement, and facilitate the networking of global practitioners and experts. Workshop participants provided feedback and recommendations to refine the course structure and content.
Field Trip to Yale-Myers Forest
On day two, participants visited Yale-Myers Forest for a field trip. Joe Orefice, director of forest and agricultural operations at Yale Forests, led a tour of the site, including the School’s maple syrup production, which drew interactive discussions on the parallel use of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) as a sustainable livelihood to conserve mangrove ecosystems in Indonesia.
Joe Orefice tours the workshop participants around the Yale-Myers Forest Camp. Photo: Allen Gil
The afternoon session involved a strategic discussion on developing Indonesia’s mangrove training landscape. The group agreed to bolster development training opportunities in East Kalimantan’s Berau River Delta, explore landscape-level monitoring, and bring further funding. Through the YPS Seed Grant Program, the group hopes to establish more mangrove demonstration sites in the region.
Blue Carbon in BIOMES
The workshop’s final day featured a BIOMES lecture by Daniel Friess on “Blue Carbon, from Site to Global Scale.” He discussed the potential of blue carbon as an efficient natural climate solution but emphasized the need for robust local support and capacity building to address huge multidisciplinary barriers.
Daniel Friess presents a BIOMES lecture at YSE’s Burke Auditorium. Photo: Pablo Montes
The lecture was followed by a panel discussion on “Blue Carbon: Advances in Science, Policy, & Management.” The panel engaged with YSE students and an online audience, providing in-depth discussions on recent advances in blue carbon-related science, policy, and management. The panel exchanged diverse perspectives in addressing the various institutional gaps and challenges to blue carbon.
The Blue Path Forward
The workshop highlighted the diverse work and research that brings blue carbon as a viable nature-based climate solution. The workshop’s unifying message calls for holistic institutional support, effective translation of science to practice, and strong community engagement at the local level to scale up global blue carbon initiatives.
Using this workshop as a springboard, ELTI is committed to exploring opportunities to expand its capacity building programs and serve as an incubator for cross-sectoral partnerships and international collaborations on blue carbon.
