The Mozblue project has begun replanting mangrove forests and has already covered 1,300 hectares. The credits will be divided equally between the promoting company, government partners, and local communities.
Dubai-based Blue Forest has announced an important milestone in the MozBlue project: ten million mangrove trees have been planted by local communities along the coast of Zambezia province since November 2024. “The campaign has already restored 1,300 hectares of degraded coastline and will reach 30,000 hectares when fully implemented in 2030,” says the blue carbon project development company, which presents its work in Mozambique as its main global commitment.
The approach “places local communities at the center of large-scale ecosystem restoration.” They are presented in the company’s report as “guardians of the project.” Blue Forest initiated contacts with local authorities and communities in 2021. It worked with 300 coastal communities and 20 partners to secure what is known as Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), establish land certification, create associations, and sign legally validated agreements for a period of 60 years, setting “a new benchmark for participatory restoration and long-term management.” This is a vital resource for everyone involved, an ecosystem for carbon sequestration, tradable in the form of credits, to help investors, companies, and greenhouse gas emitters anywhere in the world mitigate their impact on the planet and meet their sustainability goals.
More biodiversity and more resilience
In addition to entering the international carbon credit market, it is estimated that the effort “will bring degraded mangrove habitats back to life, boost biodiversity, and strengthen coastal resilience against storms and sea level rise,” argues Blue Forest, based on the lessons learned from nature where these ecosystems are preserved. The coastline in the Zambezia and Sofala regions is a natural point of impact for cyclones on the annual meteorological route (between December and April). Having plants that fix the soil and help drain floods naturally is a mechanism that can save lives.
The company promises “transformative economic impacts: the project has created 1,250 local jobs to date and supports sustainable livelihoods” through aquaculture, salt production, and access to clean water. The expectation is that these numbers will grow as the area covered expands.
The goal is to implement “the best sustainable practices for solving climate problems” and promote “social justice.”
“MozBlue is a clear demonstration that climate action and community development go hand in hand,” said Vahid Fotuhi, founder and CEO of Blue Forest, speaking at the Oceans Summit in Nice, France, in June. “We are not just planting trees, we are restoring the resilience of coastal communities that have contributed least to climate change and yet suffer the most.”
Collaborations with Removall, Sumitomo, and IUCN
The first phase of the project is being developed in collaboration with Removall Carbon and Sumitomo Corporation. The two international partners will manage the sale of “phase 1” carbon credits to finance the project’s long-term community commitments. This initial phase is expected to restore 5,116 hectares of coastline. In 2024, Blue Forest announced the operating license for what it calls “one of the largest mangrove restoration projects in the world,” from the city of Beira in the south, through Chinde—the Zambezi River delta—and Zalala, to Pebane in the north.
The company is working hand in hand with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), “a partnership to implement the latest research and technologies for a net-zero international economy.” The goal is to have “the best sustainable practices for solving climate problems” in place and to promote “social justice.”
Funders, investors, and policymakers “need to be sure that the nature-based solutions they support are effective and scalable.” The company recognizes that it is not easy to have the expertise for this type of project or “the necessary resources” to analyze and evaluate them. “The IUCN Global Standard helps fill this gap” at MozBlue, it explains, alongside the collaboration of dozens of partners.
The Company and the Projects
Blue Forest is a global company developing large-scale mangrove restoration projects, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It currently has six projects in Africa and Asia. The Mozambique project is the only one already in the implementation phase, with the development process underway in Tanzania, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, and Vietnam, while another project in Indonesia is in the design phase.
Text: Editorial team • Photo: D.R.
