Sherbro River Estuary Blue-Carbon Agreement — Carbon-Justice Mangrove Protection (Sierra Leone)

Sierra Leone's Sherbro River Estuary holds roughly half of the country's remaining mangrove forest, but deforestation there has run at about 1.7% a year since 2012, driven by fuelwood cutting and land conversion. In October 2025, 124 communities across the estuary signed a benefit-sharing agreement with West Africa Blue, a Mauritius-based project developer, covering protection of an estimated 79,000 hectares of mangroves with a potential lifetime impact of more than 3 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent.
The Sierra Leone chapter of Namati, a US-based legal-empowerment NGO, spent roughly three years helping Sherbro communities negotiate the deal, applying six 'carbon justice' principles drawn from a global network of grassroots organisations' past experience with carbon projects. Communities are guaranteed 40-52.5% of gross carbon-credit revenue (varying by phase), the Sierra Leone government receives 7.5-15%, and a tripartite Community Benefit Organisation (three community, three company and three independent representatives) oversees fund management, with community payments disclosed within 45 days of any credit sale.
Early, non-carbon benefits are already flowing: more than 2,500 efficient cookstoves have been distributed to reduce households' reliance on mangrove wood for fuel, with fish-drying ovens and processing equipment planned next. The project is certified to Verra's methodology, using what developers describe as a conservative baseline intended to address past criticisms of terrestrial and blue-carbon offset methodologies.
Reporting on the deal is candid about the risks: Verra has previously faced serious scrutiny after research found some of its terrestrial forest-carbon projects delivered far fewer climate benefits than claimed, independent academics describe unresolved 'quality problems' across many offset types, the buyer framework contains no explicit exclusion of fossil-fuel companies as credit purchasers, and Sierra Leone's post-civil-war history of land grabs by outside investors has left communities wary. No credits have yet been sold and the project's real-world carbon and biodiversity outcomes remain to be independently verified.

Read the full analysis: https://www.westafricablue.org/projects-sierraleone