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ClimeCo’s Nature-Based Carbon Offset Credits to Fund 6,000 Acres of Mangroves in Aceh and North Sumatra Regions Decimated by Aquaculture and Tsunami

Boyertown, PA – April 4, 2022 – ClimeCo, a leader in the development and management of environmental commodities, announces its partnership with YAKOPI (Yayasan Konservasi Persisir Indonesia) and PUR Projet for the reforestation of vital mangroves in the Aceh and North Sumatra Regions of Indonesia.

Mangroves sequester three to five times the amount of carbon as regular forests. Indonesia is home to over 20% of the world’s mangroves. In the last three decades, roughly 40% of Indonesia’s mangroves have been lost due to shrimp and fish aquaculture, leaving many former shrimp ponds abandoned and local communities with little access to economic opportunities. The North Sumatra region has lost 60% of its pristine mangroves due to aquaculture, putting coastal resilience, biodiversity, and wildlife habitats at enormous risk. Aquaculture isn’t the only culprit in the loss of mangroves; in the Aceh region, a substantial amount of its mangroves were lost due to a tsunami in 2004.

ClimeCo will fund the reforestation of these mangroves by selling the resulting third-party verified carbon credits and implementing the project through their local partnerships with YAKOPI and PUR Projet. This investment will support gender-equitable employment, ecosystem services payment to local communities, ecotourism business development, and a pilot program for locals to implement silvofisheries- a form of sustainable aquaculture that integrates planting and maintenance and protection of mangrove forests in aquaculture ponds.

“The improved livelihoods of the local communities and the long-term success of this mangrove reforestation project are interdependent- with the support of our partnerships, this project has all the right elements to achieve both,” says ClimeCo Program Development Manager David Chen. 

Participants in the voluntary carbon markets are becoming more aware of the environmental, social, and economic co-benefits of mangrove reforestation/conservation projects, and demand for these carbon offsets is accelerating.

“For years, clients have looked for ways to support carbon emission reductions in the oceans.  Mangrove projects offer a locally beneficial, third party verified, registry approved method to do so,” says ClimeCo Vice President, Voluntary Markets Dan Linsky.

ClimeCo has witnessed substantial, diverse, global interest in the purchase of mangrove projects from its carbon offset buyers. Such interest has been expressed during ongoing conversations, and as such, ClimeCo has transacted hundreds of thousands of mangrove-derived voluntary CO2e reductions so far in 2022.

Such interest is grounded in corporate and consulting staff recognition of the charismatic, abundant, substantial, and important co-benefits of mangrove projects. From shoreline protection to habitat restoration, generating new jobs to rebuilding food supplies, the seemingly endless list of mangrove restoration impacts in addition to carbon capture and storage has been very moving to carbon offset purchasers. These benefits represent why ClimeCo has approached this project and so many of its past projects with enthusiasm: These projects are more than just carbon reductions; we are looking to go beyond.