We plant new mangrove groves on Guatemala's coasts to restore the marine biodiversity on which local communities depend.
We work alongside five coastal communities in southern Guatemala: Mangales, Tahuexco, El Triunfo, Chicago and Churirin. We don't plant for them, but with them: training gives people the tools to grow and protect the mangroves, turning them into a lever for economic independence. Healthy forests mean more fish, more marine life, more resources, and from that come sustainable fishing and ecotourism, income that stays on the coast. They also mean real defence: a healthy mangrove belt cuts a tsunami's impact by 90%, shields against storm surges and slows the erosion that threatens homes.
A mangrove forest is one of the densest refuges of life on the planet: fish, crustaceans, seabirds and marine mammals shelter among the roots, alongside rare and threatened species. The tangled aerial roots, the pneumatophores, trap sediment, filter water and stand as a barrier against rising seas and erosion. But mangroves also do what few forests can: they absorb carbon dioxide and lock it into the seabed as blue carbon, marine carbon stores that stay stable for centuries. Restoring them is climate mitigation and coastal adaptation at once.
The CO₂ estimate is per project, not per single tree. Method and technical values are in the project page, Transparency tab.