This blog’s author is Amelia Allerton. Amelia is responsible for the collaborative development of the seagrass biodiversity project and acts as the project’s technical coordinator. She has a background in biodiversity research within Marine Protected Areas and has experience supporting community projects.

Introduction

From community conservation in coastal Kenya to international recognition on the world stage, the Vanga Seagrass Project (VSP) is undergoing a pioneering and world-first journey. The project team, a coalition between ACES, a coastal community and research organisations, are working hard to establish a community-led seagrass conservation project funded through the sale of biodiversity credits. The project’s high-integrity work has led to it being selected as one of the International Advisory Panel for Biodiversity Credits (IAPB) pilot projects. In this blog we will explore what this means for the project and the recognition that VSP has received so far as a pioneer in the marine biodiversity market.

The Vanga Seagrass Project (VSP)

Vanga Bay is the largest fish landing site in Southern coastal Kenya. The area is economically and culturally important and home to the unique mangrove island, Sii Island. The local communities of Vanga Bay – Vanga, Jimbo and Kiwegu – contacted the ACES in 2018 to replicate the successes of the world’s first community-led blue carbon project, Mikoko Pamoja, located just 50km up the coast from Vanga. The mangrove conservation project, Vanga Blue Forest, covering 460ha of mangrove forest  was launched in 2020.

From the inception of Vanga Blue Forest, the communities of Vanga Bay – in collaboration with ACES – have explored various ways of sustainable financing seagrass conservation, including the development of a ‘carbon-plus’ approach. Now, after years of successful mangrove conservation, the launch of Plan Vivo’s PV Nature Standard offers an opportunity to finance community-led seagrass conservation activities through the emerging biodiversity market. As a result, the community-led Vanga Seagrass Project was born, the first of its kind to use biodiversity credits to fund community-led seagrass conservation and protection.

The VSP aims to protect 225ha of seagrass meadows in Vanga Bay, within the East African Marine Ecoregion. Here, seagrass decline is driven by unsustainable fishing practices, predominantly illegal seine netting. The community of Vanga Bay are keen to protect this vital ecosystem and as a result, management interventions centred around gear restrictions and seasonal access for the closure sites have been formulated through a series of community consultations with the local fishing community and key stakeholders. These interventions are aimed at reducing human pressures, providing necessary time for this habitat to sufficiently recover over time. Boat patrols and enforcement of fishery rules and regulations will be implemented to ensure no destructive fishing takes place in the project area.

The project will also help raise awareness for sustainable fishing practices, seagrass conservation and the numerous benefits these fragile habitats offer. Protecting seagrasses enhances its habitat and nursery provisioning, especially for commercially valuable fish. This economically supports livelihoods for many coastal communities and provides other co-benefits such as acting as a carbon sink and improving resilience against climate change and coastal erosion. Adjacent communities will benefit from the protection of seagrasses and associated biodiversity in the bay, that includes increased fish stocks, and healthier ecosystems. The project includes 2,126 households of predominantly fishing communities represented through the Vanga Seagrass Project Committee.

The team are working hard to certify the project under Plan Vivo’s new PV Nature Standard. Our choice to align the project with Plan Vivo was a strategic one as they have a high-integrity and community-focused approach to certifying nature finance projects. Plan Vivo has recently developed a holistic and nature-positive approach to biodiversity finance, ensuring that there is accountability, inclusivity, transparency and equitable sharing of benefits during all stages of the project. Plan Vivo stipulates that at least 60% of the project income goes to the local community, enhancing local development and funding key projects selected by the community. For example, the communities participating in Vanga Blue Forest have allocated project income to the building, refurbishment, and furnishing of local schools and madrasas, to equipping the local school laboratory and medical facility (e.g. with maternity beds).

From local impact to global influence, VSP hopes to follow in the footsteps of Vanga Blue Forest who has been featured as a case study in multiple best-practice guidelines and articles. Already, VSP has been selected as one of the IAPB’s pilot projects and the team are actively participating in the Community of Practice.

The International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits (IAPB)

The IAPB is a is an independent initiative established in 2023 by France and the UK to facilitate the creation and growth of high integrity biodiversity credit markets and encourage enabling policy and regulatory mechanisms, in ways that are credible, timely, and coherent on an international level. Since its establishment, the IAPB has continued to evolve and has released clear, impactful market guidance through the IAPB’s Framework. Building on the momentum, the IAPB is currently moving to operate as a fully independent legal entity and will continue to implement ambitious plans to support the high-integrity biodiversity market. These plans include a Policy Lab to support governments with enabling policy and regulation, supporting a Community of Practice to enable shared learning among selected pilot projects and continued work on standards for high-integrity markets.

Pilot Projects

One of the focuses of the IAPB is to have a cohort of pilot projects that are working to operate in the biodiversity credit market. IAPB has brought together an initial set of more than 30 Pilots, which together give a tangible indication of the current state of the market and its development prospects. The pilots will also facilitate knowledge sharing between the wide group of projects around the globe (across 22 countries).

Excitingly, the VSP has been recognised for its high-integrity approach and has been selected as one of the 30 pilots that will collaborate with the IAPB and share learnings with other projects through its development journey in this emerging market.  As a pilot project, VSP will provide feedback on applying the high-quality principles and frameworks on the ground and share insights and learnings among the 30 selected projects.

Furthermore, VSP’s work around community engagement, inclusion and local leadership has been recognised by the IAPB and the team were recently invited to present their work in the recent Community of Practice meeting. VSP and ACES were represented by Mwinyi Hassan Mohamed and Amber Baker who delivered an invigorating presentation and participated in a lively panel discussion. The meeting focused on the topic ‘equity and inclusion, particularly of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IP and LCs), in biodiversity credit projects and markets, with a focus on benefit sharing and grievance mechanisms.’ VSPs work was well-received and led to some interesting discussions around data equity.

The VSP presenters discussed the need that to maintain high-integrity projects, the use of biodiversity metrics and measurements that are verifiable and can be audited by third parties is deemed essential for robust and verified biodiversity outcomes by the IAPB and the wider market. However, to produce auditable biodiversity data, many projects (including ours as part of the PV Nature Standard) are focusing on digital data collection methods for monitoring biodiversity and calculating credits.  However, there are risks to using remote and digital monitoring technologies as it shifts biodiversity data away from local communities and towards remote actors, with potential implications for equity and data justice. The Plan Vivo and VSP teams see this as a very relevant governance consideration for many biodiversity crediting projects as digital data collection becomes more prevalent and are working to develop approaches that are both digital and are accessible to local communities. As a result, VSP is being developed in accordance with the available Biodiversity Credit Alliance High-Level Principles to ensure good governance around data sovereignty. The PV Nature Standard and PV pilot projects are working closely with biodiversity data analytics providers and communities to ensure robust auditing can be conducted whilst also ensuring monitoring methods are accessible to the community and that data ownership remains with the local communities.

Growing interest in high-quality projects

The hard work of the VSP team has not gone unnoticed, as supporting community-led conservation momentum was a key takeaway for many at the 3^rd United Nations Ocean Conference earlier this year. The projects involvement with the IAPB has even received international endorsement from the French President! In his speeches, at the Blue Economy and Finance Forum, President Macron praised the work of IAPB’s pilot projects in channelling investment and accelerating the transition to a nature-positive future. This included a reference to the VSP, Where Macron referred to the pilots working in marine ecosystems, including “seagrass meadows in Kenya”. The project is also starting to generate interest among some current carbon credit buyers and philanthropists who already support ACES’ work and are interested in the opportunity to support holistic biodiversity conservation with verified outcomes that also provides wider local benefits.

In addition to the interest in VSP, wider interest in the biodiversity market as a whole is growing. The World Economic Forum has put extensive effort into defining the business use cases for the emerging biodiversity market. A report on demand analysis and market outlook listed 4 key interrelated ways that biodiversity credits could deliver value for companies, 3 of these use-cases had a marketing focus either through brand reputation, product enhancement and quality assurance. Marketing use-cases are a key focus for businesses as they address the emerging societal expectation for businesses to support global nature recovery by voluntarily contributing to tangible, positive outcomes for nature (TBC, 2022). A key focus for businesses to address consumer expectations and develop a marketing advantage is to support the Nature Positive Movement, of which nature markets are a key tool.

Next steps

The Vanga Seagrass Project is continuing its development journey through key on-the-ground activities and a strong focus on developing robust metrics and data collection methods for marine environments such as seagrass. The team are also working to identify key innovators, pioneers and leaders who wish to support vital community-led biodiversity conservation work that supports the Ocean Positive Movement. If you are interested in discussing high-integrity biodiversity certificates and wish to capitalise on being an early-market entrant and proactively show you value nature, please do reach out for a no-obligation discussion. To receive a copy of our coveted Biodiversity Brochure for Buyers, please do email aces@aces-org.uk and a copy will be sent to your inbox!

Vanga Seagrass Project is thankful for the support of ORRAA and Dona Bertarelli Philanthropy.

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