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Please send a message to the Canadian Government urging them to immediately protect coastal habitats that help combat climate change.

Scientists of the United Nations Environment Program recommended to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that 80 percent of the world’s remaining seagrass and salt marsh habitat be protected as an important step among the range of strategies necessary to combat global climate change. The best way to protect coastal ecosystems is to set aside marine protected areas (MPAs) and regulate their use through marine planning and ecosystem-based fisheries management. As the nation with the longest coastline in the world, protecting these ecosystems is part of the action Canada should take to combat climate change.
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The Government of Canada has already committed to creating a national network of MPAs but has not adequately prioritized that commitment nor considered identifying natural carbon sequestering habitats as part of the network. Now is the time to act.

Natural carbon sequestration is the storage of carbon in a stable solid form. Some terrestrial and marine plants sequester or fix carbon into the soil or sediments around their roots in mineral form, storing it for thousands of years or more. These carbon sequestering plants are extremely important for reducing the amount of carbon circulating in the atmosphere and oceans, and play an important role in combating climate change and ocean acidification which are caused by increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

Seventy percent of the marine plants that naturally sequester carbon are found in coastal areas such as seagrass meadows and salt marshes. Much of these areas have been lost since the 1940s due to coastal development, and have been damaged by run off from agricultural and industrial activities. These coastal ecosystems are more effective than terrestrial ones when measuring climate change mitigation effectiveness. Half a kilogram of marine plant material can sequester as much as 1,000 kgs of plant material on land due to unique chemical processes within marine sediments
Protect Coastal Habitats