Blue Carbon, a documentary with Jayda G

Blue Carbon: Nature’s Hidden Power is a documentary about carbon sequestration. It travels the globe with Jayda Guy, whose stage name is Jayda G, as she looks at places where climate change is hitting coastlines with rising sea levels.

Jayda G is a DJ, but she’s also a trained biologist. She was heading off on a world tour with her music, but she wanted to combine her travels with a look at some places where climate change is most visible and where something is being done to help the planet.

The term blue carbon refers to ecosystems where carbon is stored under water. These ecosystems can help restore the planet to health if they can be revived and cared for.

Jayda visited areas where the manatees feed on sea grass under the water. The sea grass supports a whole ecosystem of life and sequesters tons of carbon every year. She visited salt marshes where the plants not only store carbon but reduce the salinity in the water. And finally she went to several areas where mangrove forests were being restored.

The projects and places where restoration worked were not government supported. Some were subsidized by carbon credits from companies seeking carbon offsets. But the programs that worked were the ones begun and run by local people, communities who worked together to replant trees or nurture wildlife such as crocodiles. The places where there was local input and local involvement worked. The places where the people were waiting to be saved by their government were barren, eroding failures.

Jayda got in the water and worked with the people. She listened to their music and she recorded to the sounds of healthy ecosystems. Did you know manatees make a lot of noise when they chomp on sea grass? Did you know mangrove trees click and snap when the tide goes out and their roots are exposed to the air?

She used those sounds on a new album. She talked about her own carbon footprint. She didn’t feel like buying carbon credits was enough, which is why she made the documentary.

It was an interesting hour and a half spent with activists who are doing their best to save the planet for everyone.

The documentary is a CNN original and you might catch it on CNN. It’s also streaming on Max.