1. Half of land use carbon emissions in Southeast Asia can be mitigated through peat swamp forest and mangrove conservation and restoration.
- Author
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Sasmito, Sigit D., Taillardat, Pierre, Adinugroho, Wahyu C., Krisnawati, Haruni, Novita, Nisa, Fatoyinbo, Lola, Friess, Daniel A., Page, Susan E., Lovelock, Catherine E., Murdiyarso, Daniel, Taylor, David, and Lupascu, Massimo
- Subjects
CLIMATE change mitigation ,CLIMATE change ,LIFE sciences ,ENVIRONMENTAL sciences ,MANGROVE swamps ,MANGROVE ecology - Abstract
Southeast Asia (SEA) contributes approximately one-third of global land-use change carbon emissions, a substantial yet highly uncertain part of which is from anthropogenically-modified peat swamp forests (PSFs) and mangroves. Here, we report that between 2001–2022 land-use change impacting PSFs and mangroves in SEA generate approximately 691.8±97.2 teragrams of CO
2 equivalent emissions annually (TgCO2 eyr−1 ) or 48% of region's land-use change emissions, and carbon removal through secondary regrowth of −16.3 ± 2.0 TgCO2 eyr−1 . Indonesia (73%), Malaysia (14%), Myanmar (7%), and Vietnam (2%) combined accounted for over 90% of regional emissions from these sources. Consequently, great potential exists for emissions reduction through PSFs and mangroves conservation. Moreover, restoring degraded PSFs and mangroves could provide an additional annual mitigation potential of 94.4 ± 7.4 TgCO2 eyr−1 . Although peatlands and mangroves occupy only 5.4% of SEA land area, restoring and protecting these carbon-dense ecosystems can contribute substantially to climate change mitigation, while maintaining valuable ecosystem services, livelihoods and biodiversity. New study report that conserving and restoring peatlands and mangroves in Southeast Asia can offer annual climate mitigation potentials of 770 ± 97 TgCO2 e. These carbon-dense wetlands are thus key nature-based climate solutions for ASEAN countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2025
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