Dr. Oliver ? Cadhla:

It is a pertinent question, given the workshop we had yesterday. In terms of carbon-rich or carbon-capturing habitats, there are those that are seen as potential carbon-capturing habitats and those that are accredited as major carbon-capturing habitats. The two that come to mind immediately would be salt marshes, of which we have quite a large number, and seagrass habitats, both of which are very efficient and rank highly globally in comparison with forests in terms of their ability to capture carbon. A tropical example would be a mangrove forest.

The Chairman mentioned kelp and things like submerged muddy plains or abyssal plains, which are not disturbed and capture hundreds of years of biological material and carbon-based material that sits at the sea floor at depth for thousands of years, as an example of potential carbon habitats. We are also turning our attention to these potential blue carbon habitats. This is one of the reasons we had the workshop yesterday on nature-based solutions and how we can work to protect what we have, restore what needs to be restored and look to potential blue carbon habitats. Some very interesting research is being conducted by a number of institutions in the country that is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and the Marine Institute.