Kenya’s Mikoko Pamoja Project Sells First Ocean Carbon Credits to Apple.

(Source: Verra Registry Data; Reuters Exclusive, Feb 10, 2025)
https://www.un.org/tr/Nairobi-unic/story3

• What happened: In February 2025, Apple purchased 12,000 tons of verified blue carbon credits from Kenya’s Mikoko Pamoja—Africa’s first community-led mangrove restoration project. Crucially, 80% of revenue goes directly to 3,500 Giriama coastal households.
• Real impact: Mangrove coverage in Gazi Bay grew by 34% since 2023, reviving fish stocks and protecting against storm surges. Satellite data confirms no “phantom forests.”
• Why it matters: This proves small-scale blue carbon can be credible when communities control monitoring.
  → Key lesson for GVI: Our ocean carbon pilots must adopt Mikoko Pamoja’s SMS-based community verification (no drone dependency).

( Nairobi 23 January 2023). Kiswahili speakers in East Africa have a newly invented word, “hewa kaa”, meaning carbon credit – commodity villagers in Kenya’s coastal village are selling to international corporates in lieu of their pollution. When asked what business these villagers are in, they say: “we are selling air.”

These villagers are part of Mikoko Pamoja, which means ‘Mangroves Together’ in Swahili. It is a pioneering mangrove conservation and village development project initiative in the villages of Gazi and Makongeni on the south coast of Kenya. This project aims to promote the conservation and sustainable use of mangrove resources to achieve the ‘triple win benefits’: mitigate climate change, conserve biodiversity, and enhance community livelihood. 

Mikoko Pamoja conserves 117 hectares of state-owned mangroves, representing almost 16 percent of this ecosystem in the Gazi Bay. During the 20 years from 2013 to 2033, the project aims to protect 107 hectares of natural mangrove forests and conserve 10 hectares of red mangrove plantation established in previously denuded areas in the early 1990s.