I feel this way about a lot of blue carbon work. Yes we should protect mangroves & seagrasses There are excellent reasons (important fish habitat, coastal storm protection) but a lot of reasons for their protection/restoration lead w/ their role in carbon sequestration (which is less well defined).

Which leads to the question: When does leading with climate as the driver for this solution result in second best outcomes for the thing that people actually care about? Years ago we did a study on smallholder agroforestry that looked at this (for example). Projects look diff if for carbon vs. dev.

Seeing the trees for the carbon: agroforestry for development and carbon mitigation - Climatic Change

Land-use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities will play an important role in global climate change mitigation. Many carbon schemes require the delivery of both climate and rural developme...