Sabah's mangroves hold carbon credit promise

KOTA KINABALU: Mangrove conservation could become one of Sabah's strongest opportunities for generating carbon credits, said Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) Faculty of Forestry and Environment professor Datuk Dr H'ng Paik San.

However, he said the state needed to strengthen its data and certification framework before the potential could be fully realised.

The research fellow at UPM's Institute of Tropical Forestry and Forest Products (INTROP) also said mangroves could be developed as a carbon-credit project, describing them as "the best" option after Acacia trees.

"Mangroves would be the best option for carbon credits," he said.

"But again, we need the national inventory data and certifications. We hope that once we have all the data, we can propose mangroves for carbon-credit projects.

"Acacia is easier for us because we have been working with it for more than 40 or 50 years," he said, adding that there was more data on Acacia than on mangroves.

H'ng was responding to reporters' questions on the possibility of tapping carbon credits from mangroves rather than Acacia, which he had mentioned in his keynote speech at the Carbon Credit and ESG Ecosystem Conference here yesterday.

Last year, Universiti Malaysia Sabah forestry lecturer Associate Professor Dr Berhaman Ahmad said mangroves could sequester 10 times more carbon than dryland forests.

Sabah has two Ramsar sites – wetlands of international importance: the 78,803ha Lower Kinabatangan-Segama Wetlands, gazetted in 2008, and the 24ha Kota Kinabalu Wetland, recognised in 2016.

H'ng added that mangrove areas with international recognition could be considered for carbon projects, but the roles and responsibilities of the relevant parties would first need to be clearly identified.

He said the project proponent would need to have a viable commercial model to sustain conservation activities over the long term.

H'ng said carbon credits should also be viewed as a financing tool to help make low-carbon development projects commercially viable, particularly as the transition away from fossil fuels involved high upfront capital costs.

H'ng said Sabah was already seeing the emergence of a carbon-credit market, with the Kuamut Rainforest Conservation Project becoming the first Malaysian nature-based carbon project to have its carbon credits offered through Bursa Carbon Exchange.