The project seek to improve the lives of 500 smallholders? farmers and 500 fish farmers and marketer through increase awareness and empowering of the local community to collectively manage the resource in order to improve the mangroves forests, people?s security and generate livelihoods from sustainable use of the mangroves. Building confidence and acceptance from local authorities and their communities will improve mangroves management. Vulnerable groups will be trained in collective mangroves management, decision-making and create a mangrove nursery to enable them restore the mangroves and take care of them to ensure their restoration to forest.

The Mangrove forests are evergreen forests located within the wetland area. Most of them are influenced by tides and widely differing conditions of salinity and rainfall. These forests are complex and dynamic ecosystems consisting of plants and animals. They experience regular changes, and most major species within these habitats grow within a given set of environmental conditions. The mangrove ecosystem supports biodiversity, provides breeding and feeding grounds and refuges from predators for many fin and shellfish. Most of the mangroves forest areas have been destroyed and degraded by unsustainable harvesting by fisher men, local farmers, charcoal sellers, as well as by a myriad of coastal development projects including tourism and agriculture within these communities. However, in light of recent extreme natural events and the risk of rising sea levels due to the rapid increase of extreme weather event, when most of the mangroves has been deforested by community members. This can actually give rise to death and properties worth millions of Leones during such sudden events. There is an increased interest and motivation in restoring and management of mangroves for both livelihoods, as well as for disaster risk reduction benefits they provide.

In order to address the coastal issues and to contribute towards the betterment of community?s resilience, we believe that this Small Grant Project through our key adaptation strategies will eventually help in mangrove restoration on areas that have been highly depleted and a sustainable approached on livelihoods methods that served as a threat to their survival, and also to improved their understanding among community stakeholders and common people that area highly engaged in such activities.

The project intends to address some of the challenges mentioned and supports livelihoods associated with mangroves, including activities such as sustainable oyster farming, shellfish collection and producing mangrove honey to sell on the local market