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KSalim, hamis Salim, and 25 other youths from his group were having a very busy day when I first met him in November at Tudor Creek on the coast of Kenya. Some were busy planting mangroves in mudflats while others were scouting out illegal activities in the mangrove forest. The survival rate of mangroves has fallen to an all-time low. To keep them alive, the group decided to use a method whereby the trees are planted in rows 1.5 meters apart. The youths’ mission: reverse years of damage caused by climate change to this vital tropical ecosystem.
Salim, aged 30, shared his appreciation for the importance of mangroves in his community with The Daily Beast. As a child, Salim witnessed how illegally extracted mangroves were used for medicine, construction, and charcoal-burning. This caused a lot of damage to his community and killed off a lot the marine wildlife that many locals depend on as dietary and income sources.
“People were cutting mangroves for construction and charcoal, not knowing how bad they were affecting fishing, which was so important to us,” said Salim.
Salim started the Salim Foundation in order to save his community. Manyunyu Community OrganizationSince 2007, the group has been restoring mangroves along the Kenyan coastline. The group has planted more than 10,000 mangrove seedlings. It’s run entirely by young people, who have been thrust into the role of preventing the continued degradation of the mangrove ecosystems while the government remains absent. Every day, the group’s members wade through incredibly muddy thickets to safeguard the remaining fragments of the mangrove ecosystem.
“The youths in this group are all environment and climate change activists,” said Salim. “We know the vital role mangroves play to our community and in the world by reducing carbon emissions—hence our efforts in restoring them.”
A community gathering organized by the Manyunyu Community Organization at Tudor Creek close to the Kenyan coast to plant new mangrove seedlings.
Keit Silale
Rapid Action, Rapid Destruction
UNESCO has estimated that mangrove forests are in danger of disappearing Three to five times fasterGlobal deforestation is less than the global average. Current estimates suggest mangrove coverage In the 20 years since 2000, it has fallen by 35 percent.
This is quite sad news considering how crucial mangroves can be to the ecological health in many environments around the globe. They are full of wildlife, including 341 endangered speciesAccording to the Global Mangrove Alliance. These forests provide a nursery to fish and are home to over 4.1 millions fishermen around the globe. The dense, tangled roots and branches of the plant life act as a natural barrier against storm surges, floods, and dangerous winds—preventing more than $65 billion in property damages for coastal communities, and protecting more than 15 million people from floods.
Mangroves play a vital role in helping to limit the impacts of greenhouse gasses in an age of climate changes. They are one of the most carbon-rich forests in tropics and can sequester up to four times as much carbon per unit as terrestrial forests.
“We know the vital role mangroves play to our community and in the world by reducing carbon emissions—hence our efforts in restoring them.”
— Khamis Salim
Few countries understand the critical importance of mangroves better than Kenya, where these forests cover about 148,000 acres of land along the country’s eastern coast. The country’s economy and the livelihoods of millions depends on the health of its local ecology.
Human activity has caused Kenya to lose one-fifth its mangrove forest since 1985. People and communities in distress have been forced to illegally clear mangrove forests for fuel and construction materials.
Many people in Africa are taking matters into their own hands to save the important ecosystem that lives along the coasts of 118 subtropical and tropical countries. A wave of young people like the Manyunyu Community Organization are at the forefront of mobilizing micro-movements in order to restore mangroves, and take action against climate change in a local setting.
Kenya is not the only country suffering from drought. Over the past few decades in Gambia, drought has laid waste to mangrove species near Anusmana Darboe’s home in the town of Sankadi, leaving the surrounding community in dire straits. “People from my community depend on fishing as their source of income, and when mangroves die, even the fish disappear, leaving many people to suffer,” Darboe told The Daily Beast.
Global Greengrants Fund helped to sponsor youth-driven mangrove rehabilitation efforts in Kenya and other parts of Africa.
Keit Silale
Darboe, 33 year old, established the Sankadi Youth Development Organization several years ago. It works to restore mangroves in Darboe’s community, much the same way Salim and his team do it in Kenya. The mangrove restoration effort was welcomed warmly by the group, which has planted more than 150,000 seedlings. Fish populations are recovering and the forests are now more resilient to strong storms.
“I work with community members and most of them are very cooperative when it comes to mangrove planting,” said Darboe. “This is a boost and a good gesture to show how saving mangroves is very important to all of us.”
Save the World, Get Paid
The main driver of this movement is the emergence carbon markets. These carbon markets have given private companies flexibility to reach net-zero carbon emission and allowed them to invest money in conservation projects like forest conservation. Conservation groups from all over the globe have started to participate in the carbon credit trading business.
Mikoko Pamoja was first community-led conservation organization in Kenya to be certified for carbon credits trading by Plan Vivo, an internationally recognized body that regulates carbon credits. Each year, the group sells between 3,000 and 8,000 tons of carbon credits. One ton costs $5 to $8. Mikoko Pamoja began its carbon offset project eight years ago. It has now earned more than $30,000 in the last two years and is supporting dozens of other groups on the Kenyan coast.
“Our children will suffer if we don’t take action now to save the world.”
— Jackson Kinyanjui
Salim Mwarima, who led Mikoko Pamoja’s carbon offset projects until recently, told The Daily Beast the group divides the mangrove forest into plots of 100 square meters and calculates the amount of potential carbon that can be stored in each plot. It then calculates how much mangrove growth is needed to achieve this storage carbon potential. Then it goes to work planting mangrove trees.
“Carbon credits depend on the quantity of carbon every mangrove plot stores,” said Mwarima. “So the higher the carbon, the more the credits we earn. And that motivates our community members to plant more mangroves.”
In the end, ecosystem restoration is emerging as an alternative way for many countries in the developing world to reduce poverty or build economic resilience. University of Tokyo researchers discovered that every dollar spent to restore habitats is worth more than the cost of replacing them with animal and plant life. Over the next 20-years, you can earn up to $10.50.
The effects of climate changes are already being felt and are affecting restoration efforts by washing out seedlings. Mangrove forests cannot be restored to their original health without river damming and pollution.
Mangrove restoration alone will not solve climate change. The world is experiencing unprecedented heat and it is threatening the lives billions. Jackson Kinyanjui (the founder of Climate Change Kenya), told The Daily Beast that he believes urgent attention must be directed towards mitigating climate change to save the future generation.
Mangrove forests can sequester many times more carbon than traditional forest forests. However, the trees must be planted with careful effort to grow efficiently.
Keit Silale
“We need to act to tackle the climate crisis at hand,” Kinyanjui said. “Our children are going to suffer if we are not going to act now and come up with policies to save the world.”
Young people, like those who are on the frontlines for mangrove restoration efforts, are just pressing ahead with their efforts to stop climate change.
This is not surprising. Last September, A survey by UK researchersIt was found that almost 45 percent have been directly affected in the last year by climate change. 64 percent feel their governments are not doing enough in order to mitigate the effects from the climate crisis. 75% are worried about their futures as the climate crisis continues its worsening in many countries.
“It’s inherently important that youth take action against climate change as we will be the individuals to receive the direct, immensely destructive effects of climate change in the coming decades,” Gregor Sharp, one of the leaders of the American climate activist group Earth Uprising, told The Daily Beast. “Climate change will affect the youth of today and the coming generations of this world by degrading overall basic human rights. An increase in infrastructure damage due to pollution and natural catastrophes will be a result. Areas in which we currently live will become uninhabitable to human life.”
Every action counts. The world waits for national leaders and multinational corporations to take meaningful action to reduce carbon emissions. However, young people like Salim and Manyunyu Community Organization have found a new way to make a living.
