Vanga Blue Forest
Vanga Blue Forest is Kenya's second community mangrove blue carbon project, protecting around 460 hectares along the Kwale County coast since 2019. Built on the Mikoko Pamoja model and certified under Plan Vivo, it is expected to avoid more than 93,000 tonnes of CO2 over 20 years while supporting roughly 9,000 people in the villages of Vanga, Jimbo and Kiwegu.
Inside the project
Vanga Blue Forest scales the Gazi Bay blueprint to a far larger forest. A community-elected committee governs the project, ACES manages the carbon finance and Plan Vivo reporting, and KMFRI and the Kenya Forest Service provide the science and forest-governance backbone. At least 60% of carbon revenue flows back to the three villages, funding school construction, water and other infrastructure.
As the largest project in ACES' portfolio, Vanga demonstrates that the small-scale community model can be replicated at landscape scale without losing community ownership, making it a key reference for East African blue-carbon expansion.
Objectives
- Protect ~460 ha of mangrove along the Kwale coast
- Avoid 93,000+ tCO2e over a 20-year crediting period
- Return at least 60% of carbon revenue to communities
- Fund schools, water and infrastructure for three villages
- Scale the community blue-carbon model to landscape level
Approach
- Vanga relies on community-collected field and plot data with KMFRI scientific support, covering mangrove carbon stocks and forest condition.
- It is certified under the Plan Vivo PV Climate standard, issuing both removal and reduction credits, with independent verification on a five-yearly cycle.
Run a project like this on Straatos.
See how a project like Vanga Blue Forest runs on Straatos, from field data and satellite analytics through registry submission to the issued credit.