Blue Carbon Financing of Mangrove Conservation in the Abidjan Convention Region: A Feasibility Study

countries in West, Central and Southern Africa can achieve a net economic benefit from mangrove conservation. The top eight mangrove countries by mangrove area, for instance, can realize net benefits of millions of US$, even under our conservative assumptions of carbon prices. Together with payments for other services provided, mangrove conservation in West, Central and Southern African nations could be financially viable. Securing payments to maintain blue carbon stocks inWest, Central and Southern Africa Recent research has identified the opportunities, constraints, and issues of uncertainty associated with payments for maintaining blue carbon stocks (Barnes, 2014;Table 14).

costs of conservation, i.e. the benefits of conversion to agriculture. The additional benefits that intact mangrove forests provide, such as supporting the region’s fisheries, are not included due to lack of data. Hence, this analysis should be considered conservative and indicative. However, even without including values for the benefits of intact mangroves in addition to blue carbon storage and sequestration, the analysis (see Appendix 2 for methodology and complete data tables with results) suggests that conservation of mangroves is a net economic benefit for West, Central and Southern African countries when factoring in net benefits (returns) from the alternative use of land in agriculture) as high as US$ 460/ha, with an average of US$ 221/ha. On the basis of the potential payments for blue carbon alone, most

Table 11: Overview of drivers of mangrove and blue carbon loss in West, Central and Southern Africa

Main economic activities related to mangroves subsistence subsistence, fisheries, salt subsistence, fisheries subsistence subsistence, fisheries subsistence subsistence subsistence, shrimp subsistence subsistence, fisheries, salt subsistence, fisheries subsistence, fisheries subsistence, fisheries subsistence, shrimp subsistence subsistence, fisheries subsistence, fisheries, salt subsistence subsistence, ecotourism

Population dependent onmarine ecosystems (millions)

Main mangrove loss driver – Urban

Main mangrove loss driver – Rural

GDP (US$ billions 2015)

Population (millions)

Country

development development

wood removal wood removal, aquaculture and agriculture wood removal, agriculture wood removal wood removal wood removal wood removal, petroleum production wood removal drought, change in salinity aquaculture and agriculture wood removal

10.4 5.0

22.14 10.60

131.4 8.7

Angola Benin

development

10.7

22.82

32.6

Cameroon

development development, pollution development development - petroleum industry development - petroleum industry conversion to aquaculture development

2.1 9.8

4.56 20.80

14.1 34.3

Congo Côte d’Ivoire

32.6 0.4

69.36 0.78

33.0 14.3

D.R. Congo Eq. Guinea

0.8

1.71

17.2

Gabon

1.3

1.91

0.8

Gambia

12.4

26.44

38.7

Ghana

development

5.7

12.04

6.6

Guinea

development

rice plantations

1.2

1.75

1.0

Guinea-Bissau

development

wood removal

2.1

4.40

2.0

Liberia

development

wood removal

2.8

3.98

5.1

Mauritania

development, pollution development population-driven development pollution

wood removal

83.9

178.50

568.5

Nigeria

pollution erosion due to agriculture wood removal

0.1 10.2

0.20 14.55

0.3 15.6

SãoTomé and Príncipe Senegal

2.9

6.21

4.9

Sierra Leone

pollution

wood removal

3.3

6.99

4.5

Togo

Sources: Giri, Ochieng et al. (2011), The World Bank (2015)

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