Cross-Border, Nature Based Market Solutions to Protect Blue Carbon Coastal Ecosystems in the Californias

March 2022

Located along the Pacific Americas Flyway, the Las Californias bioregion is also home to a variety of neartic and neotropical migratory birds— including shorebirds, ducks, geese, song birds and raptors—that share a common survival strategy: they breed in Canada and the United States

(including riparian habitats across the state of California) during the spring and summer, then fly to tropical coastal wetlands of Mexico (including the Baja California peninsula), Central America and South America during the fall and winter. 19

Catalina coastal eddy, a localized weather phenomenon occurring within the Southern California Bight, running along the coast from Point Conception in Santa Barbara County to Punta Banda, Baja California, Mexico. Photo Credit: NASA Earth Observatory NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using data from the Level 1 and Atmospheres Active Distribution System (LAADS ) taken on February 17, 2013,

( Vireo bellii ), the American peregrine falcon ( Falco peregrinus ), the California brown pelican ( Pelecanus occidentalis ), the Ridgeway’s rail ( Rallus obsoletus ), and the Bald eagle ( Haliaeetus leucocephalus ).

Among the migratory birds of most interest for this study are those species that are threatened or endangered, including the Brant ( Branta bernicla ), the California least tern ( Sternula antillarum) , the Coastal California gnatcatcher ( Polioptila californica ), the Western snowy plover ( Charadrius nivosus ), the Least Bell’s vireo

19 Lyann Comrack and Anne Overholser, Migratory birds in peril , California Outdoor, May-June 1993, page 1.

12 | P a g e