Carlos Rodríguez, who recently graduated from the Master’s in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Programme at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Education Center –CATIE- in Costa Rica, shared the results of a study on blue carbon conducted in the Sipacate-Naranjo Mangrove Conservation Area in Escuintla, Guatemala. Blue carbon is that contained in the oceans and coastal ecosystems, including mangrove forests.
The results indicate that this mangrove area can store up to 488 tons of carbon per hectare, including standing trees, fallen timber, regeneration and soil. This figure is remarkably high considering that other studies have estimated between 150 and 250 tons of carbon per hectare in forests of Guatemala. The research project, with fieldwork carried out in the first semester of 2017, was done through collaboration between ICC and CATIE.
Carlos Rodríguez started as an intern at ICC in 2013 and then worked with us until he left for Costa Rica to pursue the master’s programme. We invite you to read Carlos’ thesis (in Spanish) and download it from the Documents section in our website.
