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2023 Jiangsu Blue Carbon Forum was held in Nantong on Thursday. Blue carbon refers to the process, activity, and mechanism of utilizing ocean activities and marine organisms to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and fix and store it in the ocean.

Laver cultivation is one of the most important marine carbon sequestration industries in Jiangsu. The "laver carbon sink loan" signed on the Blue Carbon Forum totaled 1.75 million yuan, which solved the production capital problem for Yonggui Aquaculture Family Farm in Rudong County and ensured the production of laver on the farm this year.

The seaweed loan is mortgaged with the long-term yield right of seaweed carbon sequestration, providing a new path for realizing the value of marine ecological products.

"I didn"t expect that the seaweed I raised had a carbon sequestration effect and that the carbon sink generated can be used to obtain a bank loan. Once I receive this loan, I can expand my production scale. In the past, I cultivated 800 mu of seaweed, and in the second half of the year, I plan to increase it to 1000 mu," said Lu Xingru, a fisherman of Yonggui Aquaculture Family Farm in Rudong County.

Jiangsu has a salt marsh wetland ecosystem that is known as one of the three blue carbon ecosystems. Its nearshore intertidal zone mudflat area ranks first in China.

In recent years, Jiangsu has strengthened blue carbon protection by incorporating marine and coastal wetlands into the overall pattern of ecological protection and restoration, monitoring the red line of marine environmental protection, and protecting coastal ecological spaces so as to have continuously consolidated and improved the carbon sequestration and sink enhancement capabilities of the marine ecosystem.

"We held a blue carbon forum that caters to grassroots needs with a view to building an exchange platform between government, industry, academia, and research to jointly explore the potential advantages of blue carbon and help achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals," said Zhu Wanjiang, the Secretary and Director of the Party Committee of Jiangsu Provincial Marine Law Enforcement Supervision Center.