Vanga Blue Forest — Community Mangrove Carbon Project (Kwale County, Kenya)

Vanga Blue Forest is a community-based mangrove conservation project on Vanga Bay, at Kenya's southernmost coastal tip on the border with Tanzania, in Kwale County. It was set up by residents of the Vanga, Jimbo and Kiwegu villages after seeing the results of the nearby Mikoko Pamoja project in Gazi Bay — the world's first community-run mangrove carbon project — and began operating in 2020, with its first Plan Vivo-certified carbon credit sales in 2021.

The project protects 460 hectares of mangrove forest from clearance and degradation, generating an estimated 5,347 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year in avoided emissions and sequestration, verified under the Plan Vivo standard. It is co-managed by the Kenya Forest Service and a locally elected Community Forest Association, with about 974 households — roughly 9,000 to 13,500 people across the three villages, depending on the count used — registered as beneficiaries. Sixty percent of carbon-credit revenue is returned directly to the community.

Early funding came from the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. Documented uses of carbon-credit income include school-book and building costs, hospital equipment, water infrastructure, and COVID-19 emergency relief, with further revenue earmarked for beekeeping, ecotourism and crab-farming livelihoods alongside continued mangrove restoration.

Read the full analysis: https://zeromission.se/en/projects/vanga-blue-forest-mangrove-kenya/