- Ecology
Carbon in context: towards a coherent climate strategy for Mauritius
Boris F. Mayer
- May 23, 2025
In early 2025, the Ministry of Environment issued a national call for proposals on carbon management and climate action. This formed part of the country’s effort to revise its Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement. The framing was direct:
“Faced with climate change, which worsens health risks, slows economic growth, and deepens inequality, Mauritius is developing its national contributions to both mitigate emissions and adapt to this urgent crisis.”
Mauritius contributes less than 0.01 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet it is already experiencing the effects of a changing climate: rising seas, coral bleaching, rainfall variability, and pressure on freshwater systems. These impacts are not distant possibilities. They are visible, ongoing, and unevenly distributed.
Reducing emissions remains essential. But for countries like Mauritius, the capacity to adapt will depend just as much on whether the ecosystems that regulate carbon, and that provide services, can continue to function. That means looking beyond emissions data to the flows of carbon through forests, soils, oceans, and the atmosphere.
Patterns of carbon storage and release offer a read on ecological stability. Where carbon accumulates or disappears, it tells us something about whether systems are holding, stressed, or beginning to recover.
Reading the Carbon Cycle
Carbon moves through a set of interlinked processes:
- Photosynthesis captures carbon and stores it in plant biomass
- Respiration returns carbon to the atmosphere through metabolic activity
- Decomposition breaks down organic matter, enriching soils
- Sedimentation locks carbon in longer-term stores like wetlands, soils, and marine sediments
When these processes are functioning, carbon circulates within living systems in ways that support both productivity and climate stability. When they break down, carbon builds up where it can destabilize environmental processes and undermine resilience.
The Question Behind the Target
Industrialization released massive quantities of long-stored carbon in a short timeframe. But the issue also lies in the simultaneous lack of the Earth’s systems capacity to cycle this massive, constantly growing CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
In addition to the rising levels of carbon in the atmosphere, our natural carbon sinks, namely forests, soils, coastal systems, are being depleted or fragmented. According to the IPCC, their capacity to cycle our emissions is declining. This is the heart of the carbon issue: more carbon in the atmosphere, fewer systems able to take it back.
Mauritius has set an ambitious carbon neutrality goal for 2070. This commitment matters. But if pursued in isolation, it risks missing the point. The durability of any climate strategy depends on how well the systems behind the numbers are working, not ultimately for the carbon, but for their role in maintaining a livable environment.
A System Under Pressure
In 2022, Mauritius emitted just over 6.4 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent. This is small by global standards. Still, the country faces high exposure. Its economic pillars, i.e. tourism, agriculture, fisheries, real estate, are closely tied to ecological stability.
Coral bleaching threatens livelihoods. Droughts and floods disrupt food production, safety and living standards. Sea-level rise affects infrastructure and water security. These are not hypothetical stressors. They are already reshaping the conditions in which development takes place.
Resilience in this context means more than managing emissions. It means permitting land, water, and biodiversity to play their role in helping us to adapt.
Repairing Carbon Pathways
This work is already underway in parts of the landscape. It can be expanded.
1. FORESTS
Mauritius’ upland forests, especially native and endemic species, support watershed health and microclimate regulation. Protecting these areas, and restoring degraded ones, helps retain moisture, store carbon, and reduce vulnerability to drought.
2. SOILS
Healthy soils do more than grow crops. They retain water, regulate nutrients, and act as living carbon reservoirs. Regenerative practices in land management and agriculture can build soil function over time, and improve both ecological function and productivity.
3. COASTAL SYSTEMS
Mangroves, seagrasses, and coral reefs hold large amounts of carbon while buffering coastlines and supporting biodiversity. Where these systems are intact, they offer protection. Where they are lost, risk multiplies. Reef rehabilitation and marine conservation have clear, compound benefits.
These are not quick fixes. But they are grounded, cumulative, and locally relevant.
From Accounting to Understanding
Much of today’s climate planning is built around carbon accounting: tonnes emitted, offset, or avoided. That approach has value. But it also flattens complexity.
Carbon moves through systems. It is influenced by land use, hydrology, energy patterns, and governance. A systems view of carbon doesn’t just track quantities, it asks why carbon flows the way it does, and what that reveals about the state of the systems involved.
From that perspective, carbon becomes less of a standalone target and more of a lens—a way to observe and diagnose ecological function, track degradation, and guide repair.
Toward Coherence
Reframing the role of carbon in this way leads to a different kind of strategy:
- One that strengthens ecological connectivity, not just calculates emissions
- One that values soil health and water balance alongside sequestration potential
- One that integrates adaptation into agriculture, infrastructure, and finance
- One that recognizes place-based knowledge as part of climate planning
Mauritius may be small, but it is also interconnected. Decisions here ripple quickly. Feedback loops are tighter. The opportunity is to design approaches that are responsive, grounded, and coherent.
The path ahead is not only about reaching numerical targets. It is about restoring the systems that make those targets meaningful, and building the capacity to respond, adapt, and survive in a changing world.
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