kristy.ramnarine@cnc3.co.tt
Combating climate change is at the top of Dr Rahanna Juman’s agenda.
The Deputy Director of Research Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA) is the technical lead on piloting a Blue Carbon Credit Scheme for T&T.
The collaborative project between the IMA and Inter-American Development Bank aims to design a high-quality blue carbon credit scheme to improve the digital mapping, monitoring, reporting, and verification of ecosystem services, promote management and ownership of natural capital, and create a practical opportunity for livelihood enhancements and revenue generation.
Marine ecosystems, particularly tidal marshes, seagrass beds, and mangrove forests, absorb (sequester) and store carbon within biomass and soils.
Commonly referred to as “blue carbon” ecosystems because of their relevance to the global carbon cycle, these marine ecosystems provide climate mitigation benefits and a range of other ecosystem services that support coastal livelihoods and adaptation to climate change, according to Dr Juman.
“For you to be able to participate in any carbon schemes internationally, you have to have rigid data,” she said.
“Our first step is to collect the data, how much carbon is actually stored within the biomass and the soil in the mangrove forest, and then also look at the state of the mangrove forest and rehabilitate degraded ecosystems to find out how much more carbon can be sequestered or sucked up when you restore the ecosystem.
“And how that carbon can be translated into some type of commodity, that local communities, the people that depend on the resources—the crab catcher, the fishermen and so on—can actually benefit.”
Once successful, the Blue Carbon Credit Scheme will be beneficial to T&T.
“If we are able to get into the scheme and get money, that money can be used to rehabilitate the ecosystem,” she said.
“Besides the carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation, the mangroves provide other services, such as protection from coastal erosion and habitat for a lot of the things that we eat, so it will enhance those other benefits. It’s about improving and increasing the ecosystem services they provide. All of society can benefit because they (mangroves) protect us all, our coastline, our food.”
Dr Juman started working at the IMA on a four-month contract as an intern in the Research Department straight out of university in 1996.
“Growing up, I wanted to be a doctor, but I couldn’t afford it back then,” she said.
“I went to university and did the next best thing, which is science. After graduating from UWI, I was able to get a four-month internship at the IMA, and I’m there 29 years after.”
The Wetlands Ecologist and avid advocate for wetlands conservation holds a PhD in Zoology from The University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus, and a Bachelor of Law from the University of London. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and has authored two informative publications titled The Mangrove Forests of Trinidad and Tobago and Wetlands of Trinidad and Tobago.
Dr Juman has delivered many presentations on coastal wetlands both nationally and internationally, including a TEDx Talk in 2017 on the importance of mangrove forests and, more recently, a Toute Bagai Podcast Lecture titled Wetlands and Human Policy Well-being.
“When I joined the IMA, I started working with the wetlands ecologist doing research on mangrove forests, then I started to do research on seagrass beds,” she said.
“Unlike corals and mangroves, very few people know about seagrass beds. While at the institute, I got a fellowship that allowed me to do my master’s and upgraded straight into a PhD.”
After her studies, Dr Juman secured the position of research officer at the IMA, then moved up the ranks to deputy director of research and even acted as the director for some time.
Dr Juman also serves as deputy chair of the Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Inter-Ministerial Committee and as chair of the National Sargassum Task Force, two significant Cabinet-appointed committees, and is leading efforts to develop a Marine Spatial Plan for the Gulf of Paria.
She chaired the Caribbean Sea Commission from 2021 to 2023 and is a member of the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP) Working Group 41 on Ocean Interventions for Climate Change Mitigation.
