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KNOWLEDGE BASE

Community-led mangrove management

When communities hold rights and receive benefits, mangroves are protected more reliably.

Intermediate 1 min read communitiesgovernanceKenyarestoration

Mangroves are usually public land, but the people next door use them every day. Projects work best when the community has a say, has clear rights and sees a benefit.

Common tools

  • Community forest associations that agree rules on cutting and patrolling.
  • Payments for ecosystem services: for example carbon credit income shared with the village for water, schools or clinics. In Kenya, the Mikoko Pamoja project at Gazi Bay is a well-known community mangrove carbon project.
  • Alternative livelihoods: beekeeping, ecotourism boardwalks, oyster farming and fuel-efficient stoves reduce pressure on trees.
  • Participatory monitoring: villagers count seedlings and survival.

Why it fails when it fails. Benefits arrive too slowly, rights are unclear, or outsiders (investors, charcoal traders) move faster than the community.

Using Atlas. The villages layer and the restoration sites module help show where communities live next to mangrove and which restoration projects are already underway.

Limits. Atlas does not record governance arrangements; it can only show where people and projects are.

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