As a component of the Centre’s project investigating legal implications of blue carbon, Ben Milligan and members of the Marine Climate Change Program at Conservation International will convene a panel discussion at the  IUCN World Parks Congress. The panel (Tuesday 18th November at 8:30AM) is entitled: Marine Protected Areas – Their Potential and Limits in an Era of Climate Change. It will feature contributions from marine protected area managers from Australia, Kiribati, and The Philippines. Dr Milligan will provide a broad global assessment of the relevant strengths and weaknesses of MPAs in comparison to other policy tools.

The IUCN World Parks Congress is a landmark global forum on protected areas, convened once every ten years. Building on the theme “Parks, people, planet: inspiring solutions”, it presents, discusses and create original approaches for conservation and development, helping to address gaps in the conservation and sustainable development agenda. IUCN is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental organisation, with more than 1,200 member organizations including 200+ government and 900+ non-government organizations.

As a component of the Centre’s project investigating legal implications of blue carbon, Ben Milligan participated in a workshop of the International Blue Carbon Policy Working Group, hosted by Conservation International in Arlington, Virginia USA on May 30-31 2013. The workshop focused on issues including: the status of coastal carbon sinks under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the development of blue carbon offsets for carbon markets, and pilot projects in several countries. Ben subsequently monitored the progress of negotiations at the 2013 Bonn United Nations Climate Change Conference as an accredited non-governmental observer.

As a component of the Centre’s project investigating legal implications of blue carbon, Ben Milligan participated in a workshop of the International Blue Carbon Scientific Working Group, hosted by the University of Technology (UTS), Sydney on May 15-17 2013. The workshop focused on blue carbon science and policy opportunities in Australia and the Coral Triangle region, including discussions regarding seagrass research and blue carbon modelling and mapping. On May 16 workshop participants were treated to a tour of Towra Point and Silvers Beach in Botany Bay and were presented with an overview of the region’s tidal marsh, mangrove and seagrass habitats.

The Centre for Law and Environment has recently commenced a research project entitled Binding blue carbon: developing global legal and policy responses to an emerging risk of climate change. Ben Milligan is the project’s principal investigator. Contributions are also provided by Professor Richard Macrory QC. Funding is provided by the AXA Research Fund through the Fund’s Postdoctoral Fellowship scheme.

The term ‘blue carbon’ refers to carbon stored, sequestered and released from the ocean’s vegetated habitats, including mangroves, tidal marshes, and sea-grass beds. Recent scientific studies have drawn attention to the critical role played by these ecosystems in regulating climate change. The Centre for Law and Environment’s blue carbon project will map the extent to which blue carbon management activities are consistent with, or already enabled by, international legal and institutional governance frameworks of relevance to nature-based climate change mitigation. In collaboration with several inter-governmental organisations, it will also develop detailed recommendations for enabling blue carbon management activities in selected developing countries.

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