Greenchoice and Wetlands International kick-off their partnership on Earth Day to restore Guinea-Bissau’s mangroves

Dutch sustainable energy supplier Greenchoice and Wetlands International, the international NGO dedicated to protecting and restoring wetlands, launch a joint project in Guinea Bissau to restore one of the country’s largest mangrove areas to its former mangrove glory, removing carbon directly from the atmosphere and making a positive contribution to the local biodiversity and community in the process.

With more than 3000 km2, Guinea-Bissau has the second-largest mangrove area in
Africa. But much of this has been lost as a result of felling and burning for rice cultivation. In recent years, tens of thousands of hectares of these rice fields have been deserted, as farmers switched to cashew nut production outside the mangrove zone or migrated to the city. At the same time, scientific bodies and NGOs from across the world have warned that it is only with healthy ecosystems that we can boost biodiversity, enhance food and water security and people’s livelihoods – and counteract climate change.

Wetlands International estimates that 2500 ha of restored mangroves may store up
to 1,000,000 tons of CO2 in the growing mangrove trees and soil over a timeframe of 30 years. Alongside this, the team expects expect that with the return of mangroves, bird diversity will increase and manatee, dolphin and otter populations will thrive. Around 1000 people will directly benefit through jobs, restoration work and biodiversity monitoring.

Catalysing climate ambition

Greenchoice supplies its costumers with renewable electricity but also sells natural gas. As a bridging plan to the phasing out of natural gas, it has been compensating its customers’ natural gas consumption by purchasing carbon credits from existing forest projects. Simultaneously Greenchoice stimulates its customers to reduce their gas use.

Greenchoice recently embarked on a novel strategy to enable as much impact for climate, community and biodiversity as possible by playing a catalyst role. They will now also help initiate new projects to secure and restore an amount of carbon equivalent to the carbon footprint of all the natural gas sold to customers but without claiming this carbon impact via credits.

This means that the gas footprint of clients is no longer offset directly and a continued incentive remains in place for clients to reduce their emissions. Moreover, these voluntary projects may contribute to countries’ efforts to achieve their climate targets under the Paris Agreement. Greenchoice has introduced the term ‘forest compensation’ instead of ‘carbon offsetting’ or ‘carbon neutrality’ for the gas it sells to emphasise positive impact for climate, community and biodiversity.

Ruben Veefkind, strategy and CO2 projects manager at Greenchoice, said: “The urgency of the climate change and biodiversity crises means that action must start now. This involves safeguarding and restoring wetlands as well as transforming the energy sector. We aim to be a catalyst that leverages further climate action by pioneering novel solutions and sharing our knowledge and experiences.”