Futian Mangrove Carbon Sink — Shenzhen's Government-Verified, Publicly Auctioned Blue Carbon Credits

Futian Mangrove Nature Reserve sits within Shenzhen, one of China's most built-up cities, covering roughly 126 hectares of mangrove habitat. As Beijing moved in 2023 to fold blue carbon into the national voluntary emissions-reduction framework, Shenzhen built a local mechanism to place a verified, tradeable value on mangrove protection.

Establish a locally verified mangrove-protection carbon-sink methodology and monetise it through China's first public auction of mangrove-conservation carbon credits, channelling proceeds back into conservation.

The Shenzhen Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau issued a locally approved methodology; independent third-party verification confirmed the carbon sink generated by the reserve over 2010-2020. On 26 September 2023 the Shenzhen Transaction Group ran the public auction.

38,745.44 tonnes of verified carbon sink were confirmed for 2010-2020. The auction sold 3,875 tonnes with a starting price of 183 yuan/tonne (about 2.45x the national compliance carbon market's closing price that week) and a reported closing price around 485 yuan/tonne. Proceeds were channelled through the city's fiscal system, earmarked for further mangrove protection and restoration.

The figures are locally verified against a city-issued methodology rather than registered with an international standard such as Verra, and no independent biodiversity or erosion-control metrics accompany the carbon figures; at 126 hectares and 3,875 tonnes traded, this remains a small, city-level pilot rather than a nationally scaled programme.