About Us
Prospering communities, thriving ecosystems
West Africa Blue partners with communities and governments to pioneer high integrity, financially sustainable, nature-based solutions.
We seek to mitigate climate change, boost community resilience, and protect biodiversity.
In so doing, our partnerships build income diversification and economic development opportunities, safer and more efficient cooking solutions, skills development, and financial inclusion, especially for women, in rural areas in Africa.
Our projects are some of the first large-scale blue carbon projects in Africa and have the potential to exemplify what it means to be high-quality, community-centric and financially sustainable. We believe that a focus on sharing and collaboration with a diverse group of stakeholders and market participants will help catalyze the market throughout the region and globally.
Why Blue Carbon?
West Africa’s coastline is a vibrant but threatened ecosystem. Its mangrove ecosystems sequester up to four times as much organic carbon as tropical forests and are biodiversity hotspots - home to a large number of critically endangered species such as the Hawksbill Sea Turtle, African Manatee, and the Western Chimpanzee.
These fragile mangrove ecosystems are disappearing fast and along with them, the ecosystem services that support vulnerable local communities, including a loss of fish stocks and coastal erosion.
Urgent action is needed to protect existing standing mangrove forests, the pools of carbon stored in them, and the communities they support.
Our Values
Community
Working hand-in-hand with communities in West Africa to preserve, restore, and sustainably manage coastal ecosystems, while enhancing livelihoods, is central to our mission.
Inclusion
Our projects will bring together local communities - especially women - along with governments, traditional leaders, and other crucial stakeholders, to unlock the resources essential for both local and global advancement.
Integrity
We hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity and strive to operate with the utmost transparency and fairness in all aspects of our operations.
Collaboration
We will share lessons learned, frameworks, models and successful approaches to help catalyze the blue carbon market in West Africa and beyond.
What We Do
Community Partnerships
We work closely with communities on all elements of our projects, underpinned by an equitable, transparent benefits sharing agreement and a commitment to the principles of FPIC.
Robust Science
We adapt technology to solve practical challenges faced by project developers, including measuring, monitoring, reporting and verifying environmental and social impacts.
Comprehensive Project Activities
We implement sustainable initiatives that address deforestation and diversify incomes, especially for women.
Collaboration with Stakeholders
We collaborate with governments and community partners on the practical steps to facilitate investment in high-quality carbon projects.
Financial Inclusion
We work in the field to improve community-based financial services and connect them to digital payment systems.
Biodiversity Protection
We use innovative approaches to assessing baselines and monitoring and protecting threated species while exploring “biodiversity credits”.
Mangrove Restoration
We develop and implement best practices for mangrove restoration that are tailored to our project geographies.
Enabling Policy
We are supporting government policy makers in their shift from a project-based Voluntary Carbon Market approach to a jurisdictional one.