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Restoring ocean life
Mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes capture and store staggering amounts of carbon dioxide in natural sinks – known as blue carbon. These habitats are vital to fisheries and other ecosystems including coral reefs. They are also critically important to coastal people, protecting shorelines against storm surges and underpinning fishing livelihoods.
Protecting and restoring these blue carbon habitats, a natural climate solution, is an affordable way to help avert dangerous climate breakdown. And it is available to us right now.
Mangroves are one of the most carbon dense habitats on Earth, capable of storing ten times as much carbon dioxide per hectare as typical tropical rainforest. These so-called blue forests will be vital to achieving the large-scale carbon drawdown essential if we are to have a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C.
Healthy mangroves are natural storm barriers that save lives and protect infrastructure against more extreme storms and rising seas. They also support important fisheries, sustaining the daily lives of tens of millions of coastal people. Yet we continue to deforest mangroves faster than any other forest type on Earth. Currently they account for about 19% of global emissions from deforestation.
Blue Ventures has pioneered some of the world’s first blue carbon projects as an effective model to help communities protect mangroves. We are now expanding these projects to mangrove-rich countries in Africa and Asia.
As communities restore and protect mangroves, we use robust, data-driven methods to measure, value and monitor the blue carbon captured. And by pooling multiple projects and creating a transparent marketplace for blue carbon, we’re providing coastal communities with a direct and fair channel to climate finance.
Madagascar’s mangroves support globally important marine biodiversity, and underpin the traditional livelihoods and fisheries of some of the world’s most vulnerable coastal communities. Yet they are being lost at accelerating rates, particularly because of unregulated harvesting for timber and charcoal sold at local and regional markets.
In 2019 we launched Madagascar’s first blue carbon project, empowering communities to conserve and reforest over 1,200 hectares of mangroves. The project, known as Tahiry Honko (which means ‘preserving mangroves’ in the local Vezo dialect), avoids emissions of over 1,300 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
Registered with the Plan Vivo standard, Tahiry Honko will provide a regular income through carbon credit sales to support local conservation efforts over the next twenty years. Funds are also helping finance community development including the construction of vital infrastructure and supporting healthcare and education.
The project combines mangrove fisheries and forestry management in one coherent framework, supported by sustainable alternative livelihoods, including sea cucumber and seaweed farming and mangrove beekeeping.
This approach gives both marine life and fishers a better chance of coping with the stresses and shocks of climate breakdown. More secure food and livelihoods, improved income and savings, and better access to basic services including health services make coastal fishing communities more resilient to climate change.
