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Description
The ocean provides vital ecosystem services, threatened by anthropogenic and climate change (CC) pressures. Their undesirable impacts can be mitigated if ecosystem-based management, adaptive marine spatial planning, and habitat restoration strategies are implemented. BLUEFORESTING builds upon these approaches to provide CC ready nature-based solutions (NBS) to successfully manage the most iconic coastal habitats, Marine Seaweed Forests. Although threatened, these ecosystems are biodiversity-rich, recognized as cost-effective NBS with potential to mitigate CC effects. Their capacity to deliver key ecosystem services and support blue growth makes them blue infrastructures. Fostering healthy marine forests means promoting regional fisheries, recreational activities, and cultural traditions while fighting biodiversity loss and CC. In this context, BLUEFORESTING will develop science-based guidance to foster sustainable and healthy marine forests by assessing baseline information (e.g., genetics, processes, functions, services), and identifying climate refugia areas. BLUEFORESTING models and tools will provide vulnerability assessments to co-develop effective and climate ready NBS. Expected results are of paramount importance to support future marine protection and reforestation actions in a cost-effective and sustainable way. BLUEFORESTING aligns with the EU Blue Growth agenda as it proposes sustainable ecosystem-based management actions that can help proactively protect and increase the resilience of marine forests under CC, guaranteeing the provision of associated services. BLUEFORESTING represents an excellent opportunity to prove how science-based governance may promote the sustainability of marine habitats and services. The established partnership will promote bilateral knowledge transfer and dissemination, strengthening international cooperation and cooperation while increasing value creation and sustainable growth in the Portuguese blue economy.
Summary of project results
Ocean ecosystems play a crucial role in providing essential ecosystem services. However, cost-effective climate
adaptation tools are essential for them to continue supporting key ecosystem services such as fisheries and other
products that contribute to the blue economy. This includes enhancing the capacity to predict the impacts of climate
change and promoting nature-based solutions (NBS) and other blue carbon initiatives as tools to mitigate climate
change.
BlueForesting aimed to integrate climate change as a core for science-based guidance on the design and
implementation of NBS to promote sustainable and healthy Marine Forests as climate change mitigation and
adaptation solutions. We have used innovative techniques to provide the most up-to-date knowledge on marine forest
extent, distribution trends, functioning, regional climate change projections, and species vulnerability to stressors,
including the most resilient populations, to develop and test innovative NBS that incorporate the most advanced restoration techniques and modelling approaches to provide climate-smart solutions. As a result of these ambitious goals, we received CIIMAR''s Nautilus Award for raising funds for marine forest research.
BlueForesting mapped for the first time the extent of kelp forests over 512 square kilometres in northern Portugal and
determined their blue carbon potential. We found that future environmental scenarios pose risks to the persistence of
Laminaria hyperborea, one of the cold-water kelps on our coasts, but not to the warm-water species that are expanding
their distribution. This change means different contributions to ecosystem services due to the species’ life span.
Nevertheless, some regions may act as thermal refugia and should therefore be prioritised for conservation action.
Some kelp populations may also have greater genetic diversity and adaptive capacity to be exploited in restoration
programmes. For the restoration itself, we have improved protocols for high-quality seedlings. However, there are still
challenges related to the scalability of restoration, the efficient deployment and growth of juveniles in the field and
local herbivory pressure.
In line with the scientific advances, we have engaged with stakeholders and the public to understand their views on
the importance of marine forests'' and promote their literacy through more than 50 communication events. We have
also worked to understand their willingness to pursue conservation action and aligned our work with the needs of
policy makers. Around 50% of the public recognise the significant benefits of marine forests and there is strong local
support for the protection of these forests in the north of Portugal. Finally, we have stimulated local initiatives to discuss the opportunities of the blue economy with marine algae and how this type of initiative could also promote the active recovery of marine forests.
Summary of bilateral results
The BlueForesting consortium was designed to include marine laboratories with complementary expertise, significantlyenhancing potential collaboration between partners. Donor and recipient countries have jointly participated in theproject activities, united by a common vision that has led to impactful and transformative scientific outcomes andmanagement tools.For example, NIVA has world-class expertise in modelling and climate research. As part of Blueforesting, NIVAdeveloped regional, downscaled projections of climate change for various RCP scenarios. These projections were thenintegrated into the Blueforesting vulnerability assessments and used extensively in the project''s climate scenarios.Another successful collaboration with the NIVA was relative to their expertise in environmental economics for thedevelopment of a choice experiment study. This study jointly coordinated by NIVA and CIIMAR, aimed to determinethe preferences of the Portuguese population and their marginal willingness to pay (WTP) for supporting conservationand restoration measures related to the marine forests in northern Portugal.The collaboration between the Portuguese institutions and Akvaplan-NIVA has also been instrumental in advancing thetechnical aspects of the reforestation effort. Common laboratory experiments have been carried out on the thermaltolerance of common kelp species and nursery techniques.Several exchanges of students/researchers were feasible thanks to Blueforesting, Bianca Reis (CIIMAR) and Joao Franco(IPL) visited NIVA in summer 2022 for ecosystem functioning research in Norway and Sofia Chan (CIIMAR) did a shortinternship at Akvaplan NIVA in 2023 to develop thermal tolerance experiments.