Building community resilience through mangrove restoration in Zanzibar

Project update

25 Jan

Written By International Tree Foundation

We are excited to announce that we have secured funding for a new project in Zanzibar! Aiming to increase the capacity of local communities in participatory forest management, the project will work on 10 villages around Unguja.

Zanzibar Association for Climate Change Resilience (ZACCR) aim to plant 12,000 mangroves. In addition, 25,500 trees of other species will be planted or regenerated in the target communities.

The news of this project comes just a few days after we announced three new projects to be funded through our Sustainable Community Forestry programme. We are excited to be able to fund this additional project, which was one of a shortlist of excellent proposals received during the grants round.

Funding comes from a small residue of money donated by the public to ITF following our Tsunami Appeal in 2004. The remaining balance has been raised by Wessanen UK’s Team Tree, made up of staff members from their offices across the UK. Since the beginning of ITF’s partnership with Wessanen UK last summer, staff from their offices have held a number of fundraising events for ITF.

From running the Oxford Half Marathon to donating proceeds from stalls at markets, to cake sales, Team Tree have made a real difference to what we can do. Thanks to their efforts, we can now fund the Association for Climate Change Resilience’s new project, which will restore and protect some of Zanzibar’s important mangroves.

Wessanen UK’s Team Tree fundraising for ITF

Mangroves are one of the few tree species that can grow in sea water. They are important for coastal ecosystems, as their roots stabilise coastlines and reduce erosion from waves and storms. Mangroves also sequester large amounts of carbon, making them important for both local and global ecosystems. Mangroves have played an important role in protecting communities against the effects of tsunamis, which is why we’re putting the last funds from our appeal into this project.

This project is just one of a shortlist of excellent conservation and restoration projects that we are currently seeking to fund. Following our recent Sustainable Community Forestry grants round, sponsored by Wessanen UK, ten projects were highly commended by the panel and twenty six more form a pool of potential partners for the future. We are actively seeking funding for these projects, and hope to be able to announce further partners very soon. Watch this space!