KYhamis Salim and 25 other young people in his group had a busy day when I first met him in November, at Tudor Creek along the Kenyan coast. Some are busy planting mangroves in mudflats, while others are involved in detecting illegal activities in the mangroves. Mangrove survival rates have dropped to an all-time low, forcing the team to adopt a method of grafting trees in selected rows 1.5 meters apart to keep them alive longer. Young people’s mission: reverse the years of damage caused by climate change to this vital tropical ecosystem.
Salim, 30, told The Daily Beast how important this mangrove species is to his community. Growing up, he witnessed how the illegal logging of mangroves for construction, medicine and coal burning devastated his community, killing much of the marine wildlife that many people inhabit. local people rely on as a source of food and income.
“People are cutting down mangroves for construction and for coal, unaware they are adversely affecting fishing, which is very important to us,” said Salim.
To save his community from total destruction, Salim founded Manyunyu Community Organization, has been restoring mangroves along the Kenyan coast since 2007. The group has planted more than 10,000 mangrove seedlings. It is run entirely by young people, who have been pushed into the role of preventing further degradation of mangrove ecosystems while the government remains absent. Every day, the team members must wade through unbelievable mud to protect the remains of the mangrove ecosystem.
“The young people in this group are all environmental and climate change activists,” says Salim. “We know that mangroves play an important role in our communities and in the world by reducing carbon emissions — so we work to restore them.”
A community gathering by the Manyunyu Community Foundation at Tudor Creek near the Kenyan coast to plant new mangrove seedlings.
Keit Silale
Quick Kill, Quick Action
UNESCO estimates that mangroves are disappearing three to five times faster than global deforestation in general. Current estimates suggest mangrove cover has decreased by 35% in the last 20 years.
This is rather sad news considering how important mangroves are to the ecological health of many environments around the world. They are brimming with wildlife, including 341 threatened species according to the Global Mangrove Alliance. These forests are fish nurseries, supporting more than 4.1 million fishermen worldwide. The dense, tangled branches of plant life act as a natural barrier against storm surges, floods and dangerous winds — preventing over $65 billion in property damage to communities. coastal communities and protect more than 15 million people from flooding.
And in an age of climate change, mangroves play an invaluable role in helping to limit the impact of greenhouse gases. They are one of the most carbon-rich forests in the tropics, capable of sequestering up to four times as much carbon per unit as terrestrial forests.
“We know that mangroves play an important role in our communities and in the world by reducing carbon emissions – so we work to restore them.”
– Khamis Salim
Few countries understand the importance of mangroves better than Kenya, where these forests cover some 148,000 acres along the country’s east coast. The health of the local ecosystem is vital to keeping the country’s economy growing and sustaining the livelihoods of millions.
But since 1985, Kenya has lost a fifth of its mangroves to human activity. The economic downturn has put pressure on struggling individuals and communities to illegally cut down mangroves and sell timber for building materials and fuel.
Across Africa, however, many are choosing to tackle the problem on their own to save the vital ecosystems that thrive along the saltwater coasts of 118 tropical and subtropical countries. On the frontline is a wave of young people, like those from the Manyunyu Community Foundation, who are campaigning for micro-movements to restore mangroves and take action against the local climate crisis. direction.
Kenya is no longer alone. Over the past few decades in the Gambia, drought has adversely affected mangrove species near Anusmana Darboe’s home in the town of Sankadi, plunging the surrounding community into dire straits. Darboe told The Daily Beast: “People in my community depend on fishing as their source of income, and when the mangroves die, even the fish disappear, leaving many people miserable.
The Global Tree Conservation Fund has helped fund youth-led mangrove restoration efforts in Kenya and the rest of Africa.
Keit Silale
A few years ago, Darboe, 33, founded the Sankadi Youth Development Foundation, which works to restore mangroves in his community in the same way that Salim and his team do in Kenya. To date, the mangrove restoration effort has been welcomed with warm applause, and the group has planted more than 150,000 seedlings. Fish populations are growing again, and forests are once again resilient to strong storms.
“I work with community members and most of them are very cooperative when it comes to mangrove planting,” says Darboe. “This is a motivation and a good gesture to show that saving mangroves is so important to all of us.”
Save the world, get paid
The big driving force behind this movement is the emergence of a carbon market, which gives private companies flexibility in achieving net zero carbon emissions and allows them to offset their emissions by investing money. into efforts such as forest conservation. Noting that this could be an opportunity to allow young people to earn a living by fighting climate change, conservation groups in many parts of the world have also begun to get involved in the commercial credit business. carbon only.
Mikoko Pamoja is the first community-led conservation group in Kenya to be certified for carbon credit trading by Plan Vivo, an international body that manages carbon credits. The group sells at least 3,000 tons of carbon credits a year, with a ton costing around $5 to $8. Mikoko Pamoja started the carbon offsetting project just eight years ago. But in the last two years alone, it has raised more than $30,000 and is now helping to support dozens of other groups along the Kenyan coast.
“Our children will suffer the consequences if we don’t act now and put in place policies to save the world.”
– Jackson Kinyanjui
Salim Mwarima, who led Mikoko Pamoja’s carbon offsetting projects until recently, told The Daily Beast that the team divided the mangroves into 100 square meter plots and calculated how much potential carbon could be stored in each cell. It then calculates the rate of new mangrove growth required to achieve this carbon storage capacity. Then it started planting those mangroves.
“The carbon credit depends on the amount of carbon that each mangrove cell stores,” says Mwarima. “So the higher the carbon, the more credits we earn. And that motivates our community members to plant more mangroves.”
Finally, ecosystem restoration is emerging as a new way for much of the developing world to reduce poverty and build economic resilience. Last August, University of Tokyo researchers found that every dollar spent restoring habitat to plant and animal life could return up to $10.50 in the next 20 years.
But the effects of climate change are already being felt, increasingly hampering recovery efforts by washing away seedlings. Pollution and river dams are also an obstacle to ensuring mangroves can be restored to a healthy level.
And just restoring mangroves will not solve the problem of climate change. The world is seeing ever hotter temperatures, threatening the lives of billions of people. Jackson Kinyanjui, founder of environmental organization Climate Change Kenya, told The Daily Beast he believes urgent attention needs to be turned towards mitigating the climate crisis to save future generations.
Mangroves can sequester many times more carbon than traditional forests, but trees need to be planted with meticulous effort to grow efficiently.
Keit Silale
“We need to act to tackle the climate crisis,” Kinyanjui said. “Our children will suffer if we don’t act now and put in place policies to save the world.”
With the clock ticking and the real lack of government action, young people like the frontrunners in mangrove restoration efforts are simply advancing their own efforts to stop climate change. Queen.
That is not a surprise. last September, a survey conducted by UK researchers shows that nearly 45% of young people globally have been directly affected by climate change. About 64% say their government is not doing enough to avoid the effects of the climate crisis. And 75 percent are worried about their future as the climate crisis continues to worsen in many countries.
Gregor Sharp, one of the leaders of the American climate activist group Earth Uprising, said: “It is natural for young people to take action against climate change because we will be the individuals who will have to bear the direct impacts. continue, the enormous devastation of climate change in the coming decades. told The Daily Beast. “Climate change will affect the youth of today and future generations of this world by undermining universal basic human rights. Pollution and natural disasters will increase damage to basic infrastructure. The areas in which we now live will become uninhabitable for human habitation.”
However, every action matters. As the world continues to wait for national leaders and multinational businesses to step up and adopt meaningful actions to reduce carbon emissions, young people like Salim and Community Foundation Manyunyu has found a way to make a difference as a new way of making a living.
