Mangroves provide an important buffer against climate change. A 2,400-hectare mangrove ecosystem in Maharashtra’s Raigad district will be among Apple’s focus areas as it works to support communities around the world worst impacted by climate change. With a grant from the tech giant, Applied Environmental Research Foundation (AERF) will work with the local community to protect the mangrove forest, which provides an important buffer against climate change.
Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice-president of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, said the fight against climate change “is a fight for the communities around the world whose lives and livelihoods are most threatened by the crisis, and that’s where we’ve focused our work — from Colombia to Kenya to the Philippines.” She added: “Our new partnership in India continues this momentum, helping a community benefit economically from the restoration of the mangrove forests that protect against the worst impacts of climate change.”
As part of the partnership, AERF will ink conservation agreements with local community members and support them in exchange for conserving and protecting the mangroves on their land, a release said. The goal of the partnership, which will try to be a self-sustaining one, is to help transition the local economy “to one that relies on keeping mangroves intact and healthy”, it added.
Apple’s grant will also support the restoration of mangroves across a 50-hectare area where they have degraded. It will also purchase and distribution portable bio-stoves that allow people to cook without cutting down mangroves for firewood.
AERF will also engage Conservation International to verify the climate benefits of the mangroves, accounting for the carbon sequestered in both the trees and soil. Along with protecting coastal communities from climate impacts like the unpredictable monsoons and rising tides like in Raigad, mangroves act as “carbon sinks” that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in their soil, plants, and other sediments.
AERF director Dr. Archana Godbole called the partnership a great opportunity to explore “how mangrove conservation and community benefits can go hand in hand”. “Though mangrove conservation issues are diverse and different in each place, here in our project area, opportunities are also many. Training our young, enthusiastic team as well as local communities for blue carbon will surely help us travel a long way to achieve mangrove conservation in this vibrant coastal area along the Arabian Sea.”
Conservation International’s blue carbon finance project in Cispatá Bay, Colombia, supported by Apple was the first in the world to adequately and accurately measure not only the carbon that mangrove trees store in their trunks and leaves but also what they sequester in their soil. AERF will apply the learnings from this project to their work in Raigad and later scale it across India.
Through its $200 million Restore Fund, launched last year with Conservation International and Goldman Sachs, Apple has been making investments in forestry projects that aim to remove carbon from the atmosphere while generating a financial return for investors. These efforts are part of Apple’s broader goal to become carbon neutral across its global supply chain by 2030.
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