Maputo, Sept. 6, 2024 (Lusa) - Mozambique's government has approved a project to plant 200 million mangrove trees in the country over the next 60 years, with planting due to start in November, the project's promoter MozBlue announced on Thursday.

‘We're going to start planting the first of the 200 million mangrove trees in Quelimane, Zambezia, in November, in line with the start of the rainy season in Mozambique,’ Vahid Fotuhi, the founder and government director of Blue Forest, told the French news agency, France-Presse (AFP).

The project will be the largest mangrove concession in Africa, Dubai-based Blue Forest said in a statement, adding that it had obtained the necessary licence from Mozambique's government after two and a half years of feasibility studies.

Blue Forest's founder and government director, Vahid Fotuhi, told AFP that the project will restore mangroves in an area of 155,000 hectares, twice the size of Singapore, for example, and is expected to create around 5,000 jobs.

Mangroves, which grow along sea coasts in areas regularly covered by salty or brackish water, are among the most effective carbon sinks in the world and, therefore, play an important environmental role in the context of African countries' energy transition.

Cyclones and floods have damaged the vast mangrove ecosystem along some 2,000 kilometres of Mozambique's coastline, as well as by logging and deforestation, but over the next 60 years, the MozBlue project should enable the capture of 20.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), contributing to efforts to reduce climate change, said Fotuhi.

MBA/ADB // ADB.

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