Blue Carbon in Queensland

Blue carbon is the carbon that is stored in the plants and soils of marine and coastal ecosystems, such as kelp forests, mangroves, seagrasses and tidal marshes. These ecosystems are highly effective at sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and the ocean. Blue carbon is a priority research area for the Land Restoration Fund (LRF) under its market support program.

Benefits of healthy coastal ecosystems

Healthy coastal ecosystems provide a range of benefits including carbon sequestration; reducing the impact of storm surges and coastal erosion; supporting marine biodiversity by providing nursery habitats for fish and other marine species; improving water quality through sediment trapping; and supporting recreational and cultural activities.

Potential for blue carbon projects in Queensland

Deakin’s Blue Carbon Lab estimates that wetlands along Queensland’s coastline hold a blue carbon stock of over 111 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO²e). This is equivalent to the annual emissions of 87 million cars.

The abundance of wetlands presents opportunities for landholders and businesses to get involved in restoration and protection projects that earn money through environmental markets.

Currently, Queenslanders can generate Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) from blue carbon projects using a single blue carbon method available through the ACCU Scheme. The Tidal Restoration of Blue Carbon Ecosystems methodallows for the generation of ACCUs by reintroducing tidal flows to an area of land through removing or modifying a tidal barrier such as a sea wall, bund or tidal gate. This results in the rewetting of previously drained coastal wetland ecosystems, and the re-establishment of these ecosystems. Projects can claim carbon credits for:

• the carbon stored in the soil and the above- and below-ground vegetation, and
• the reduction in emissions due to the saltwater, rather than freshwater, conditions.

An additional blue carbon method based on reducing disturbance of coastal and floodplain wetlands by feral ungulates is being developed by the Northern Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance and the University of Queensland. Read more about the method on the Method Development Tracker.

Other environmental markets – such as Reef Credits and the forthcoming Nature Repair market – can provide financial incentives for landholders and business to undertake restoration activities such as replanting mangroves, expanding seagrass beds, reducing disturbance by feral animals and rehabilitating tidal marshes.

Current initiatives to support blue carbon in Queensland

The Queensland Government supports a range of initiatives aimed at unlocking the state’s blue carbon potential:

1. Blue Carbon Partnership: A collaboration with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to identify and support key enabling projects that aim to increase uptake of blue carbon projects in the catchments of the Great Barrier Reef, including improving datasets and tools, education and awareness, and science-based methods to measure the co-benefits of blue carbon projects.
2. The Blue Heart project: The Blue Heart Sunshine Coast is a partnership between Sunshine Coast Council, the Queensland Government and Unitywater to sustainably manage 5,000 hectares of the Maroochy River floodplain, an area prone to flooding and increasing tidal inundation under our changing climate. The Blue Heart project aims to protect the most critical areas of the floodplain, establish wetland and floodplain ecosystems, and improve the quality of water flowing to the Maroochy River. As the Traditional Owners of the land, the Blue Heart partners work closely with the Kabi Kabi First Nations Peoples to ensure that their knowledge, cultural connection and cultural values are recognised in, and strengthened by, the project. A key project under the Blue Heart initiative is a blue carbon project over approximately 165 hectares of public land. This is the first blue carbon project to be registered in Australia under the ACCU Scheme, utilising the Tidal Restoration of Blue Carbon Ecosystems method.
3. Queensland Blue: A research collaboration carried out in 2019-2020, led by Deakin University in partnership with The University of Queensland, James Cook University, CSIRO, HSBC, Qantas, Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, NQ Dry Tropics, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and Greencollar, to develop the blue carbon market in Queensland. The project mapped blue carbon stocks in Great Barrier Reef catchments, identified the drivers of blue carbon sequestration, and modelled potential carbon sequestration under various management scenarios. The project found that activities such as removing tidal barriers and reinstating tidal exchange could sequester up to 256 million tonnes of CO²e across 90,000 hectares of coastal wetlands. Read more about this project:
   • Current and future carbon stocks in coastal wetlands within the Great Barrier Reef catchments
   • Modelling blue carbon farming opportunities at different spatial scales
   • Blue Carbon in the Great Barrier Reef catchment story map
4. Blue Carbon and Farmland Restoration: This pilot project, which commenced in 2019, was a collaboration between the World Wide Fund for Nature – Australia, James Cook University, the University of Queensland, Greenfleet and Queensland Trust for Nature. It aimed to trial the generation of blue carbon credits and co-benefits through the re-establishment of blue carbon ecosystems by restoring tidal connectivity on a property in the Ninds Creek area near Innisfail. This approach to generating blue carbon credits has since been adopted as the first blue carbon method (Tidal Restoration of Blue Carbon Ecosystems) under the ACCU Scheme, and data generated by the project contributed to the development of the blue carbon accounting model (BlueCAM) for calculating carbon abatement under the blue carbon method. Read more about this project:
   • Lessons learned on the feasibility of coastal wetland restoration for blue carbon and co-benefits in Australia
   • Calculating carbon: The value of information in precision for blue carbon restoration projects

Blue Carbon Resources

• Restoring Blue Carbon Ecosystems: A Best Practice Guideline for Hydrologic Assessments
• A Roadmap for Coordinated Landscape-scale Coastal and Marine Ecosystem Restoration
• Blue Carbon in Australia: Understanding the Opportunity for Indigenous People
• Coastal Blue Carbon Ecosystems – a snapshot of current activities supported by the Australian Government
• The International Partnership for Blue Carbon
• Blue Carbon Conservation, Restoration and Accounting Program