The Seaweeds are macrophytic algae, a primitive type of plants lacking true roots, stems and leaves. The word seaweed gives the wrong impression that it is a useless plant. Seaweeds are wonder plants of the sea and highly useful plants. Seaweeds grow in the shallow waters. Seaweeds are one among the commercially important marine living and renewable resources of India. They contain more than 60 trace elements, minerals, protein, iodine, bromine, vitamins and several bioactive substances therefore, are of great economic value and they serve as both feeding and breeding grounds for invertebrates and fishes. Seaweeds are renewable source of food, energy, chemicals and medicines. They provide valuable source of raw material for industries like health food, medicines, pharmaceuticals, textiles, fertilizers, animal feed etc.

Seaweed farming does not require fresh water, arable land, no deforestation and no fertilizers-all significant drawbacks of land-based farming-thus ocean farms promise to be more sustainable. As a result, according to World Bank, it has negative Carbon Foot Print.

World Bank predicts that achieving a global production of 500 million tons of seaweed by 2050 would absorb 10 million tons of nitrogen, which is 30 percent of the nitrogen estimated to enter in the ocean. Seaweed can also absorb 15 million tons of phosphorus, which is 33 percent of the total phosphorus reached to the ocean by runoff. Seaweed production of 500 million tons would consume 135 million tons of carbon, which is 3.2 percent of the carbon added to seawater each year from greenhouse gas emissions.

India has a coastal line of around 7,500 km, which can be potential seaweed farming zones. The seaweed cultivated in about 0.25 million ha along the Indian coast line can give rise to 30 million ton seaweeds. This can lead to about 43 – 300 million ton CO2 sequestration from the atmosphere depending upon the types of seaweed. Seaweed along the Indian coast is capable to utilize 3017 t/CO2 per day against its emission of 122 t /CO2 per day, indicating net carbon credit 2895 t /day (Kaladharan et al., 2009). Apart from carbon sequestration, seaweed cultivation could generate following benefits:

• Seaweed can be harvested and used to produce biofuels
• Animal husbandry is major source of methane, having high potentiality towards climate change. Seaweed added to cattle food can reduce methane emissions from the sector
• Seaweed could be source of plant growth stimulant and seaweed-based compost could enrich soil
• Seaweed farm would serve as fish breeding farm and improve fish catch

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Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants which have ability to survive variety of climatic and edaphic conditions. Apart from found naturally in forest, it could be grown marginal and degraded lands, elevated grounds, along field bunds and river banks. Bamboo has thousands of economic applications; hence people call them ‘green gold’. Bamboo also enhances rain water retention and soil moisture conservation which ultimately check soil erosion.

Bamboo has several advantages over tree species in terms of sustainability and carbon fixing capacity. Bamboo is one of the most productive and fastest growing plants on the planet. The fastest-growing species among the bamboos may grow up to 1.2 m a day. This unique growing capacity makes bamboo a valuable sink for carbon storage.

India is the major bamboo producing country with almost 11.4 million hectares area under it. There are different reports on the number of genera and species of bamboo found in India. As per the latest compilation 18 genera and 128 species were reported (Seethalakshmi and Kumar 1998). Of the total species found in India about 20 are commercially used.

Bamboo minimizes CO2 gases and generates up to 35% more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees. 1 hectare (2.2 acres) of bamboo sequesters up to 62 tons of CO2/year, whereas 1 hectare of young forest sequesters 15 tons of CO2/year. (Source: J. Janssen, Technical University Eindhoven, 2000). Thus Bamboo could sequester 04 times more CO2 compared to same area under other young trees.

Beema bamboo (Bambusa Balcooa) is developed from the open pollinated population of bamboo found in West Bengal, followed by further selection and tissue culture work to improve and stabilize its yield and made the plant free from disease.  The Beema bamboo plant is not genetically modified organism and it is a product of conventional breeding which no way involved in gene modification. It could Bamboo sequester 150 tons of CO2/year in 1 hectare.

Per capita carbon emission estimates for India are 1.5 tons/year. To offset CO2 emission of India it would require just plant 4 Beema bamboo / person. The degraded lands and wasteland have good potential to meet this requirement. There is also possibility to use treated sewage for growing this bamboo stock. At the same time only one Beema bamboo is good enough to produce yearly Oxygen requirement of a person.

Along with other products, bamboo biochar has economic as well as ecological value. Biochar is a carbon-rich organic material, an organic amendment, and a by-product derived from biomass by pyrolysis under high-temperature and low oxygen conditions. The elemental composition of biochar generally include carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and some lower nutrient element, such as K, Ca, Na, and Mg (Zhang et al. 2015). Biochar was reported to improve not only soil chemical and physical properties but also soil microbial properties. Biochar could store nutrients and be used as slow-release fertilizer which could reduce need for fertilizer inputs. The production of chemical fertilizer requires energy (burning fossil fuel) and its soil application releases nitrous oxide, which contributes towards GHG emission. Thus, the reduction in fertilizer input will reduce GHG. Like bamboo, biochar could also be produced from different agricultural waste readily available with farmers, which is otherwise burned.


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