Blue climate agro-ecologies

Seawater Solutions

Blue climate agro-ecologies

Creating blue agro-ecologies that decarbonise coastal agricultural supply-chains

Glasgow, UK

GBR

For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models

Coastal communities around the world are facing multiple climate-crisis challenges such as rising sea levels, the salinisation of coastal land, and the erosion of coastal ecologies. Blue carbon ecosystems, like salt marshes and mangroves, have long protected coastal communities from these threats. Cleared for agriculture and development, these ecosystems are under increasing threat. The gradual salinisation of soil has led to a huge loss of arable farmland, pushing millions of farmers off their land each year across the world. Historically, mangroves and salt marshes have acted as a barrier to spreading salinisation. As a result, land is lost at increasing rates. Unfortunately, these ecosystems were cleared to make room for agriculture, which later becomes salinised exactly because of the removal of these ecosystems. This cycle of destruction is what must be addressed in the coastal context.

Seawater Solutions

The solution is designed and caters to coastal communities globally that live and work around blue ecosystems, primarily salt marshes in Europe and Asia, and mangrove forests in Africa and South America. These communities generally depend on these ecosystems for fisheries, raw materials like timber, or on the land to produce salt. Most of these communities engage in a 'race-to-the-bottom' extractive nature, quickly depleting available resources and land within these ecosystems. Without incentives like carbon market payments or supply chains for regenerative ingredients, communities have little choice than to keep extracting at current rates until resources are completely depleted. The solution addresses this resource depletion at its core, in providing a toolkit for designing regenerative approaches, as well as a platform in which carbon markets can be unlocked to finance restoration and incentive conservation. A focus on blue economy supply chains further incentives regenerative resource management, by providing access to communities engaged in restorative approaches and production.