Research has found that changes in current land management practices in the mangrove forests of West Papua Province, Indonesia could have significant impacts on the country’s future emission reduction targets.
The research published in Global Change Biology found that future escalation of land-use change in Papua mangroves could have implications for Indonesia’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement of 2015.
Charles Darwin University’s Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods PhD candidate Sigit D. Sasmito said current land management practices in Papua’s mangroves reduced carbon stocks substantially.
“Our evaluation of blue carbon stocks and their potential emissions and removals suggest that current land management practices in Papua’s mangroves, such as forest harvesting and small-scale aquaculture, reduced carbon stocks substantially,” Sigit said.
“Given the Papua mangrove estate accounts for 50% of Indonesia’s 2.9 million hectares of mangrove area, the region is clearly an important asset for nature-based climate change mitigation policy.”
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