Tamar Law, a Ph.D. student in development studies whose research examines the climate justice dimensions of climate mitigation, earned the 2022 Ronny Adhikarya Niche Award (RANA) Prize, the Department of Global Development announced today.
The RANA Prize recognizes Global Development graduate students pursuing innovative thinking in their studies and careers. The funding will support Law’s examination of blue carbon governance and low-carbon development in Indonesia.
Blue carbon refers to coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves, with manageable and atmospherically significant carbon stocks. Indonesia, with more than 17,000 islands, is home to the largest and most productive blue carbon ecosystem on the planet. Indonesia has more than a quarter of the world’s mangroves, yet since the late 1990s has lost more than 40% of its mangrove coasts due to shrimp aquaculture, development and deforestation. This loss of mangrove ecosystems has made Indonesia’s coastlines vulnerable to climate shocks and also contributes to significant carbon emissions, according to Law.
In 2022, the Indonesian government released plans for the world’s largest coastal restoration and blue carbon project. The Mangroves for Coastal Resilience project aims to rehabilitate over 1.55 million acres of degraded mangrove coastline by 2025. With support from the RANA Prize, Law intends to conduct field research tracing the scientific, economic, and political practices of local mangrove ecosystems as an economic development strategy in Indonesia.
“Climate management can exacerbate existing inequalities as countries in the Global South are increasingly forced to shoulder the burden of both climate shocks and responsibility for climate mitigation,” Law said. “With my research I hope to delineate mitigation pathways that promote climate justice and resilient climate futures for all.”
