30 Years of Innovation and Excellence: GRID-Arendal Annual Report 2019

Making mangrove conservation work for communities

In 2019, GRID-Arendal played a key role in boosting the sale of carbon credits from mangrove conservation and restoration efforts. Building on the success of a small project in Kenya’s Gazi Bay, we worked with partners to launch carbon credit sales from two new community- based mangrove carbon finance conservation projects, in southwest Madagascar and Vanga Bay, Kenya. Mangroves are highly efficient at storing carbon dioxide, so the projects are selling certified credits on the international voluntary carbon market to buyers who want to offset

greenhouse gas emissions. The resulting revenue goes to participating communities, enabling them to finance education, health care, and other critical services and to transition away from activities that destroy mangroves. With the projects launched in 2019, we’re demonstrating that this type of nature-based solution can be scaled up and spread. These initiatives have been developed under the Blue Forests Project, a collaboration between GRID-Arendal and UNEP with backing from the Global Environment Facility.

KEY NUMBERS

1,700+

hectares of mangrove forests now listed on the voluntary carbon market, thanks to the GEF Blue Forests Project

75

estimated percentage of commercially fished species that depend on mangroves for habitat or food

33

estimated percentage of mangroves that have been lost over the last century

Above: A painting by artist Hafidh Omari Salim of a mangrove ecosystem in Gazi Bay, Kenya. At right: Salim (left) discussing his paintings with Steven Lutz , head of GRID-Arendal’s blue carbon programme.

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