Proposed Plan: Sell the Air  

The government not only has title to land and sea but also to the air.  They should set up carbon credits, which means they sell rights to pollute the air.  This will enable to the government to cap and control air pollution.  It will also force developers to look at how much they pollute the air, because they need to know how many credits to buy, and re-evaluate this figure, because they are always in favor of costs.  Did you know that preventing and/or reducing deforestation has the most direct and powerful impact on reversing the carbon dioxide in the air?  Too much carbon dioxide emission in the air has lead to climate change, which has drastically negative consequences on the mangroves. 

Mangroves are among the ecosystem that sequester
the most amounts of carbon 

Furthermore, the Fijian government could use the money from the credits to help fund projects protecting and restoring the mangroves.  The mangroves help create clean air, so it is only fair to give back to them.  In both the past in present, Fiji has not been able to implant projects due to lack of funding.  This proposed plan could raise enough money.  Furthermore, Fiji has a lot of untapped potential for tourism and further development.  It is imperative that Fiji approaches its future sustainably in order to preserve its natural environment which it is so dependent on.  

This proposal is largely inspired by the Livelihood Fund.  They have five different projects currently in place, two in India, one in Indonesia, one more in the DRC, and another one in Senegal.  They sell carbon rights and use the money to help improve environmental situations in their respective communities.  This fund is successful largely due to investors.  In just one year, they have positively impacted more than 300,000 people, offset more than 7 million carbon, and restored more than 35,000 hectares.  They have also planted more than 14,000 hectares of mangroves.  This project demonstrates the great potential of carbon investing.  

The table on the left shows that out of all of the eco-systems, mangroves have the highest potential carbon value.  Investing in mangrove carbon is very promising. 













Works Cited:
Bishop, Joshua and Jean-Pierre Rennaud. Wetland and Coastal Carbon: Developing New Asset Classes. IUCN and Danone.

"Livelihoods." Livelihoods Fund. Livelihoods Fund, n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. <http://www.livelihoods.eu/livelihoods-fund.html>.

"Carbon Investment." Carboninvestmentsorg. Carbon Investment, n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. <http://carboninvestments.org/>.
Table citations:

http://wetcarbon.earthmind.net/files/IUCN-and-Danone-May-2011-Coastal-and-mangrove-carbon-FINAL.pdf