Half of the world's mangrove ecosystems are at risk of collapse due to climate change, deforestation and pollution, according to a study published Wednesday. Blue carbon ecosystems, which include mangroves, play a key role in nature, especially as very efficient carbon sinks, as this videographic explains. VIDEOGRAPHIC
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00:03 Ecosystems known as blue carbon can
00:08 be found along the coastal regions
00:10 and include mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrasses,
00:13 such as the Posidonia seagrass meadows in the Mediterranean.
00:18 In total, they cover 50 million hectares of the planet.
00:24 Like forests, they absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis
00:28 and capturing carbon in the decomposing vegetable
00:30 and animal material.
00:33 These ecosystems cover only 0.5% of the seabed,
00:37 but play an important part in reducing emissions,
00:40 driving climate change.
00:41 For the same area, they retain three to five times more carbon
00:45 than a tropical rainforest, because they
00:47 stock large parts in the sediments and their roots
00:49 and rhizomes, and not only in the plants at the surface.
00:54 But these carbon absorbers are threatened
00:55 by warming of the oceans and the reduction
00:58 in wet coastal zones, which have decreased
01:00 by half in the past century.
01:02 Their protection is urgent, because if they
01:04 are degraded or destroyed, they risk
01:06 releasing the large amounts of carbon
01:08 they have stocked over thousands of years.
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