The proposed project will be implemented in Jimbo village within Shimoni-Vanga seascape of Kenya?s South coast. The community here heavily depends on marine resources for livelihood with fishing related activities employing an estimated 90% of households. Other activities that supplement fishery related livelihoods include agriculture and small-scale businesses. The heavy dependence on marine resources has led to overfishing that has also led to use of more efficient fishing gears. Some of the same gears are destructive e.g. the spearguns and beach seine. In turn, there has been massive degradation of marine ecosystems that manifests itself in continually reducing fish catches and household incomes causing entrapment of the people in a vicious cycle of poverty. Marine environmental degradation has been worsened with the coming of migrant fishers. The neighbouring villages have been regularly hosting migrant fishers during the North East Monsoon season, who then go and fish in Jimbo waters. The migrant fishers have been accused of using destructive and unsustainable fishing gears. This has caused massive environmental degradation leading to steady decline in fish catches and incomes and hence widespread discontentment amongst local fishers and creating conflicts among the neighbouring communities. Another consequence of poverty due to resource degradation has been the high number of school drop outs who end up again as fishers overstraining the already over harvested fishery resource. While, illegal and destructive fishing has been taking place in Jimbo, BMU capacity to combat these illegal activities has been inadequate. The community can only participate in sound resource management if they are led well by a focused and strong leadership. This has been missing in Jimbo BMU. It is also the reason why illegal and destructive fishing has been taking place. The community currently has very few sources of income and raising mangrove seedlings can become a viable income alternative. Besides, current mangrove planting techniques focus on direct sowing of seeds. This often leads to massive mortalities. An alternative method is to raise seedlings in pots till maturity for transplanting. This will ensure survival rate is higher.

The proposed project seeks to address the above problems through enhanced participation of the community and their capacity building. The main expected outcome is the improvement of the socioeconomic conditions of beneficiaries and the community at large, and deceleration environmental degradation. Proposed interventions include; building capacity of the BMU in combating illegal and destructive fishing through training and actual conducting of patrols. The project also proposes an innovative method of raising mangrove seedlings in nurseries for rehabilitation along the Vanga/Jimbo mangrove belt. Currently there are four groups actively planting mangroves every year. Community members involved in the activity will also be able to earn an income as well as benefiting the environment in terms of providing carbon sequestration sinks and also fish breeding habitats. There are also blue carbon initiatives being developed by KMFRI and other partners that can benefit from these mangrove seedlings.