Potential of habitat restoration to sequester carbon and mitigate climate change

Human activity and the increasingly concerning effects of a changing climate impact every aspect of ecosystems on Earth. This paper will discuss several habitats, from blue carbon sinks in the ocean to terrestrial forests, in order to analyze their potential for capturing and storing carbon from the atmosphere. This paper also examines a variety of restoration projects and their effectiveness in restoring habitat for the goal of mitigating climate change. All three habitats discussed—oceans, wetlands, and forests—proved to be highly effective in sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. A study on the recovery of seagrass meadows showed that 1700 restored hectares brought carbon sequestration levels just below those found in natural seagrass, at 36.68 grams of carbon per year (Greiner et al., 2013). The restoration of mangroves and terrestrial forests were similarly effective. Reforested mangroves, over 40 years, sequestered 232.8 megagrams of carbon. The replanting of a forest in Uganda resulted in the capture of around 48,800 megagrams of carbon after 18 years (Wheeler et al., 2016). Other facets of habitat restoration were also taken into account, such as the comparison of reforestation and afforestation. This paper describes the many aspects of habitat restoration and aims to provide information on its effectiveness in relation to climate change.