A one-year primer project to help establish a shared process for North Brazil Shelf Integrated Coastal Management, recognizing the prevalence, socio-ecological importance and connectivity of mangroves, in retention of key ecosystem services to communities between the North Brazil Shelf countries. Silvestrum supported Conservation International, Governments of Guyana and Suriname with a regional biophysical review. To understand the hydrodynamic and physical processes that 1) lead to the formation and maintenance of the mangrove and mudflat coastal lowlands of the NBS; 2) influence the impacts of development on the resilience of coastal systems; and 3) define how mangrove ecosystems and carbon stocks will respond to climate change (e.g., sea level rise). A simple geometric model was developed for this study to evaluate the magnitude of coastal retreat under sea level rise and potential for landward mangrove migration.

Silvestrum is assisting the South Australian Government’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality through coastal restoration. Silvestrum is working with a team of research scientists from Flinders University (lead by Professor Sabine Dittmann) and environmental economists (lead by Professor Bob Costanza) to assess if the conservation and restoration of the Dry Creek Salt Field can be developed into a project for carbon finance. The Dry Creek Salt Fields extend 30 km from Dry Creek on the northern outskirts of Adelaide to Middle Beach on the southern Australia coast. If feasible, this project would achieve substantial environmental, economic, and climate mitigation and adaptation co-benefits.

As a commitment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the EPA has prepared an annual Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions and Sinks since the 1990s. Silvestrum serves as the ‘Coastal Wetlands Source Lead’ responsible for delivering reporting tables and chapter sections quantifying GHG fluxes from coastal wetlands. The 2017 report included the contribution of coastal wetlands for the first time, within the chapter on Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses. This inclusion was based upon guidance provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the 2013 Wetlands Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidance on GHG Inventories (for which Dr. Steve Crooks was a Lead Author). Research outputs have been published in Nature Climate Change, Nature Scientific Reports and Global Change Biology. The 2018 report is currently available for public review!