"Mangrove forest conservation should be involved in the discussion on the important role of tropical wetland and climate change," senior researcher of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) Daniel Murdiyarso said in a seminar on wetland in Denpasar, Bali, on Monday.
Daniel said the result of a scientific research from CIFOR and the U.S. Forest Service showed that mangroves store exceptionally more carbon than most tropical forests, but they are being destroyed from coastlines at a rapid rate causing significant emissions of greenhouse gases.
The outcome of the research has written in a paper titled "Carbon-rich tropical mangroves and climate change mitigation in a time of rising seas" published by the Nature GeoScience.
Daniel said that according to a new study in Nature GeoScience, mangroves might be the world`s most carbon rich forests to store up to four times as much carbon as other tropical forests including rain forests.
Therefore he called on Indonesian government to pay as much attention to mangrove forests as to peat forests and develop even better policies to protect the mangrove forests.
Daniel suggested that the government make a policy, applying an international initiative know as REDD+ (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) which was considered one of the most cost-effective ways to slow the rate of climate change.
(Uu.O001/HAJM/F001)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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