Social Consideration for Blue Carbon Management

Coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass beds, and salt marsh provide ecosystem services to mitigate climate change. The stored carbon is called blue carbon. To date, studies relating strategy to enhance blue carbon storage is emerging. In developing a strategy to be applied to a natural resource, it is necessary to consider how it is affected and influences its people’s lives. Meanwhile, the studies related to blue carbon management’s social aspects are lacking compared to technical and policy aspects. This paper aims to identify peer-reviewed documents that discuss social aspects in the context of blue carbon management. This study uses a semi-systematic review approach by reviewing relevant documents based on determined keyword search terms. This study suggests that livelihood, land tenure, local knowledge, and local capacity are essential to incorporate in blue carbon management. The strategy must enforce communities to hold a significant role in governance. Those aspects would help to increase community engagement to manage and support blue carbon management. However, more extensive practical studies are needed to apply strategies on the real subject to strengthen the theory in recent literature.


Introduction
Blue carbon is organic carbon preserved in marine and coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrass [1]. The ability of coastal ecosystems to stored carbon made these ecosystems known as climate change mitigation agents. However, coastal ecosystems also have ecosystem services for climate change adaptation efforts. The mangrove ecosystem serves to protect the coast from ocean waves and currents [2]. One of the impacts of climate change is an increase in storms' frequency, causing stronger waves and coastal erosion [3]. Meanwhile, the presence of mangrove vegetation can increase sedimentation on the coast [3]. The carbon sequestration ability of coastal ecosystems on a plot scale is more significant than terrestrial ecosystems. On a global scale, blue carbon's contribution is not as immense as terrestrial vegetation due to limited land for coastal ecosystems [4]. However, coastal ecosystems' ability to store carbon needs as climate mitigation strategies can't be underestimated.
Blue carbon gains interest since the terms first coined in 2009, highlighting the devastating degradation of coastal ecosystems [5]. Due to its ability to sequester carbon, several countries have been incorporated coastal ecosystems as mitigation activities on their National Determined Contribution (NDC). Over 163 submitted NDCs, only 28 states have included coastal ecosystems as the mitigation plan, while 53 countries include coastal ecosystems as an adaptation plan [6]. The lack of countries that have incorporated blue carbon in their mitigation plan is understandable because blue carbon is a relatively new study compared to the forest. Sustainability of the management strategy has to be the primary target, and sustainable development is a great concept to achieve that target [7]. Sustainable  [8]. The management strategy will be sustainable if the three pillars of sustainable development are incorporated.
Coastal ecosystems are under pressure from human activities. There has been the degradation of coastal ecosystems caused by human activities on the coast, such as land conversion to aquaculture, dredging, seawater pollution, changes in physical processes in coastal areas, and exploitation of resources [9], [10]. In fact, the total area of coastal ecosystems (mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrasses) in the world is only 2 -6% of the area of tropical forests, but the degradation of these coastal ecosystems is equivalent to 19% of carbon emissions from global deforestation [11]. Concerning this issue, the blue carbon ecosystem has generated more attention from scientists, practitioners, and policymakers to conserve and restore these ecosystems through blue carbon projects worldwide. Blue carbon project is a project that concerns managing the blue carbon ecosystem with the primary objective is climate change mitigation. However, it also can generate profit from carbon financing. Several blue carbon projects around the world have gain benefits from carbon financing as an additional income for the project and community, for examples are Mikoko Pamoja in Gazi Bay, Kenya; Markets and Mangroves in Mekong Delta, Vietnam; and India Sundarbans Mangrove Restoration in Sundarbans, India/Bangladesh [12].
Most blue carbon projects targeted to conserve and restore coastal ecosystem, however conservation project that avoid emissions from deforestation and degradation give more contribution for emission reduction than rehabilitation project [13]. Conservation effort is challenging because of human pressure towards coastal landscape, human activity as land use change for aquaculture, livestock farming, settlements, and unsustainable coastal tourism development are the threats for coastal ecosystem conservation [14], [15]. One of instrument to protect and conserve mangrove ecosystem is marine protected area (MPA) [16]. Blue carbon project can be integrated into MPA design and management to avoid mismanaged in coastal ecosystems [16].
Knowledge related to blue carbon is currently still developing and requires more research to address limited knowledge. According to Thomas (2014), literature related to blue carbon is dominated by technical and policy commentary and lack of social considerations and public sector perspectives [17].
The key to the successful implementation of the blue carbon project is the participation of local communities [12], [14], [18], [19]. Vanderklift et al., (2019) stated that one of the things that need to be considered in the formation of blue carbon projects is stakeholder engagement (social license to operate and knowledge transfer) [20]. The contribution of local community engagement in blue carbon projects is building social resilience, preserving cultural values, and promoting ecosystem services that are a source of livelihoods [21]. However, the main challenge is the integration of the social and cultural dimensions with government mechanisms [22]. The position of blue carbon projects in the world is still in its early stages, most projects in the world are still on a pilot scale, so this project acts as a testing ground for new ideas, methodologies, and financing mechanisms [12]. This study aims to update the current literature about this gap, especially how the social consideration in blue carbon management literature has been emerging since Thomas (2014) publication. Besides that, to answer the question, "What are the social aspects that need to be considered?".

Method
This study applied the semi-systematic review method, which the main objectives of this method are to show the research progress over time and to provide an extensive background of current knowledge [23], [24]. The analysis begins with a search for peer-reviewed literature in the Google Scholar database within the range year 2014 -2020. This range of years was chosen because in Thomas's (2014) research it was identified that studies related to social aspects in blue carbon management were still few, therefore this research will see the progress of the research. The search terms used were 'blue carbon' as the central concept and related terms used were 'management', 'project', 'communities', 'social', 'policy', 'stakeholders', and 'people'. Several search terms also added those are 'mangrove', 'salt marshes', and 'seagrass'. Several publications were found but only 26 publications that significantly explain about social aspects of blue carbon management. The technique used was content analysis which is the method for identifying, analyzing, and reporting patterns in the form of themes within a text [25].

Results
The key to an ecosystem management strategy is to study the relationships between ecosystem services and the people who depend on them because analyzing these relationships has the potential to improve management and conservation efficiency [26]. This research found four main social aspects to be considered on blue carbon management, as discussed below.

Livelihoods
Community-based management has been proven effective for blue carbon projects as it shows in the Markets and Mangroves project in Mekong Delta, Vietnam. This project seeks to conserve and restore the mangrove ecosystem in this area by assisting and supporting shrimp farmers to get the organic certification of their yields, resulting in a higher price for their shrimps. The shrimp farmers are restricted to destruct mangrove and mandated to achieve more mangrove coverage by conserving or planting [12]. Years after the project implementations, the farmers received profits from carbon financing, and shrimp sells, unexpectedly the profit from certified organic shrimp was higher than carbon financing and even increasing the shrimp production [12]. One of the coastal ecosystem services is providing nursery, feeding, and spawning ground for fish juveniles and contribute to improving the fish stock in the adjacent sea, which benefits fishers [15].
Besides fisheries, the coastal ecosystem has attracted tourist, especially mangrove ecosystem. Nusa Lembongan, located in Bali, Indonesia, offered a mangrove tour as one of the tourist attraction and gave income to the local community. Acknowledging the importance of mangrove ecosystem to the local community, the customary leader or known as 'Ketua Banjar' establish restriction to cut mangrove trees through customary law called 'awig-awig' and it leads to blue carbon conservation. Incorporating community's livelihood to the blue carbon management strategy proven to be effective [12]. Without concerning the livelihoods, communities would be less supportive of coastal ecosystem conservation and rehabilitation efforts [27].
Blue carbon projects can be a new source of income for communities from carbon financing in addition to providing other ecological and economic benefits that are needed by organisations [28]. Sales of blue carbon credits can be made through various mechanisms, at the international level under the UNFCCC there are Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Joint Implementation Mechanism (JI), and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD +). Also, there are independent carbon crediting mechanisms or better known as voluntary carbon markets such as PlanVivo, Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and Gold Standard [29]. Some countries have even developed their crediting mechanisms at the regional, national and sub-national levels. The carbon price in each instrument varies, especially the mechanism at the local, national and subnational levels. However, the voluntary carbon market carbon price is undoubtedly lower than the mechanism under the UNFCCC.
The blue carbon project in Gazi Bay, Kenya has benefited from the sale of carbon through PlanVivo, and the revenue is used for operational costs for mangrove ecosystem management (employee salaries and mangrove conservation and restoration needs) and community development projects [12]. For small-scale blue carbon projects, the voluntary carbon market has been the most successful mechanism to implement because of its straightforward requirements and fewer transaction costs than the international carbon mechanism under the UNFCCC [12], [15]. Voluntary carbon market schemes can serve as pilot sites for procedures, methodologies and technologies for managing blue carbon and subsequently incorporated into regulatory schemes [15] such as CDM, JI, and REDD +. Another incentive alternative for mangrove conservation is through direct payments as implemented in Ecuador. A program called 'Socio Manglar' was established to offer direct money to communities in exchange for the preservation and restoration of mangrove areas. For areas between 100 -500 ha is valued for USD 7.000, 501 -1.000 ha is valued for USD 10.000, and above of 1.000 ha is valued for USD 15.000. This programme has been promising, and the mangrove area has doubled [30].

Land tenure
Before including livelihood as part of the blue carbon management strategy, the social conflict among the local community has to be analyzed. Many literatures strongly suggest that land tenure has to be clearly defined before implementing any plan in the selected area as this might lead to social conflict [5], [16], [22], [31]. The land tenure system in each region might be different as it depends on people's culture. The blue carbon project in Kaimana, West Papua, Indonesia, is developing with the help of Conservation International and other stakeholders. Kaimana's people practice communal ownership system in the mangrove forest area [16], which the land ownership is divided based on clan. Another case of land tenure study in coastal ecosystem is in Low Coastal Plain, Guyana, South America. In Guyana, legally the land is owned by public/government, Amerindians (indigenous peoples), and private [32] as well as in Tanakeke Island, South Sulawesi, Indonesia the mangrove area is owned by local communities, private sectors, public, and government [27].
According to Johnson-Bhola (2020) study in Guyana, most of the people living in coastal areas do not know that mangroves are legally protected yet local people are willing to conserve mangroves on their land if compensation is given [32]. Besides compensation, issuing legal title to landowners of rehabilitated mangrove forest can be the solution for land tenure issue [27] as done in Tanakeke Island. This solution is suggested because there are landowners of ponds for aquaculture pledge their ponds for mangrove rehabilitation yet they need assurance that once it rehabilitated to mangroves, they would maintain the land tenure of their areas, fearing that it might be claimed by the government in the future [27]. The legal title of the rehabilitated mangrove area is guaranteed with several conditions: 1) Rehabilitated lands may not be clear-cut in the future. Timber harvest is allowed by following the regulation; 2) All community members get access for non-timber forest products; 3) Landowners does not require to pay aquaculture-use taxes, as their ownership classified as conservation/sustainable utilization; 4) Traditional owners without land certificates will be assisted to be registered; 5) Each village will designate an area for the strict reserve of ecological services [27]. These conditions are needed to avoid deforestation in the future. Land ownership becomes the key to the community's willingness to contribute to mangrove conservation [32]. The conflict in land jurisdiction even occurs in the governance level, as the blue carbon is located in both marine and terrestrial area makes the resource management and decision making more challenging [15]. The land tenure issue also leads to resource use rights by the community. Right-based approached is suggested to reduce the likelihood of conflict arising [16].

Local knowledge
Coastal communities have been developing local knowledge to utilize and manage the coastal ecosystem as a result of historical and continuous interaction with the coastal ecosystem. In previous management projects in a marine regime such as Integrated Coastal Management and Marine Protected Area, it implied that the contribution of local communities during the planning and management process leads to success [19]. During the planning process, local communities can share their knowledge about current and potential threats to the conservation of coastal ecosystem, identification of potential sites for blue carbon management, and habitats around blue carbon ecosystem [16], [19]. Potential problems can arise when the blue carbon management plan changes traditional community management with top-down or the government-led system because it can have unexpected consequences, namely weakening the role of local communities in managing their resources [19]. Identification of socio-ecological of these critical coastal ecosystems is needed, as each community has it owns culture [13]. In blue carbon project, local community acts as both user and steward to ensure the sustainability of blue carbon management [17]. The terms local stewardship used to define "the actions taken by individuals, groups or networks of actors, with various motivations and levels of capacity, to protect, care for or responsibly use the environment in pursuit of environmental and/or social outcomes in diverse social-ecological context" [33].

Local capacity
Based on Bennet's definition of local stewardship, this concept hinges on three key elements, and those are actors, motivation, and capacity. This analysis centred on the local community as the actor and the community's motivation to conserve the coastal ecosystems is inclined to livelihood. Therefore, local capacity is also essential in blue carbon projects [33]. Two factors influence local community capability to take action in stewarding resources are 1) local community assets and 2) governance factors [33]. Local assets can include social capital (e.g., trust, networks, and relationship), financial capital, physical capital (e.g., infrastructure and technology), cultural capital (e.g., traditions, knowledge, and practices), human capital (e.g., skills, education, and demographics) and institutional capital (e.g., agency, empowerment, and options) [33]. While governance factors, including laws, policies, organizations, power, and politics [34], [35]. In the context of blue carbon management, the example of governance factors is the mangrove restoration site in Kantiyajal, India. In Kantiyajal, twenty-three industries contributed to mangrove plantation, which extent to 4.675 ha, through this programme, the local community has joined in to steward the mangrove [9]. Ecuador is one of the countries that already included blue carbon as the mitigation efforts in their NDC, the 'Socio Manglar' programme is the implementation of their strategy, it proves that with the support of governance factors in the form of policy, the local community can contribute to blue carbon projects [30]. The tension between investor and project developers must be avoided to maintain the sustainability of blue carbon project, local communities and project managers can be equipped with training, resources, and support to ensure their capacity to manage the blue carbon project and adapt processes to their culture (needs, practice, and local knowledge) [16], [19].
Women's participation is one of the underestimated local capacity because local social systems and structures often deprive women participation and ownership over natural resources [31]. Moreover, often women are directly concerned by the conservation of coastal ecosystem resources, yet they are rarely recognized as stakeholders and not well informed of current policies such as REDD+ [27], [36]. Blue carbon project in Kaimana, Papua already recognize the capacity of women to manage mangrove ecosystem through all-female patrol group, which are in charge of monitoring, enforcement, and compliance practices [16]. Women's participation in coastal ecosystem conservation and rehabilitation also occur in Tanakeke Island, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, the group called Womangrove was established to ensure women participation from planning until the implementation of project [27]. The establishment of Womangrove also supported with gender awareness training to all of the involved parties [27]. Women's participation in the blue carbon project can increase local capacity besides give benefits to women such as empowering women and generate alternative income [12].
Most of the established blue carbon project only covers the mangrove ecosystem; meanwhile, seagrass and salt marsh project have not established yet. The local capacity to manage seagrass and saltmarsh ecosystem remains low because public awareness towards ecosystem services of seagrass and saltmarshes also remains low [26], [37]. Besides that, research in seagrass and salt marsh remains low, particularly in the relation between the ecosystem and local community [26]. More extensive research is needed for seagrass and salt marshes ecosystem, from technical, policy, and social aspects, therefore this information can be transferred to the local community. Blue carbon study is currently emerging; it might take time for blue carbon to be well established as forest management. Successful pilot projects can fill knowledge gaps, attract investor, and develop operational capabilities [20].

Conclusion
The social aspects of the local community that have to be considered in blue carbon management are livelihood, land tenure, local knowledge, and local capacity. Research publication about the social aspect in blue carbon management has to emerge since 2014 and have incorporated those aspects on the establishment of a blue carbon project. Moreover, more extensive practical studies are needed to apply strategies on the real subject to strengthen the theory in recent literature. The down-top approach by considering those aspects is needed to answer the challenging global issue, which is the integration of social-cultural dimensions and government mechanisms. Further research is needed to challenge the