Kenya: 'We Only Have One Ocean' - Kenya's 'Mother Mangrove' Calls for Urgent Ocean Protection

Mombasa, Kenya — In Kenya, community conservationists are leading the charge to restore carbon-rich mangroves. Zulfa Hassan has inspired women to rehabilitate damaged mangrove forest ecosystems, restoring marine life and securing livelihoods.

Mangroves are among the most carbon-rich forests in the world because of their high carbon content. The mangrove ecosystem supports significant marine biodiversity and human well-being and is one of the most beneficial ecosystems. Fish breed in these habitats, the coasts are protected from erosion, sediments, and contaminants are filtered before they reach corals and seagrass. Mangrove roots can also trap floating pieces of plastic in the open ocean, fighting plastic pollution.

Mangrove forests also store four times more carbon than rainforests and are vital for fighting climate change.

Mangrove forests store 50 times more carbon in their soils per surface area than tropical forests and ten times more than temperate forests. Protecting coastal trees is therefore critical in the fight against climate change and global warming.

Hassan is known in her community as Mama Mikoko, translated to Mother Mangrove in Swahili. Her conservation journey began in 2018 after members of her community participated in a learning visit to Madagascar. What they saw changed everything.

"We saw how communities were conserving and restoring mangroves and we were inspired to bring this back to our community," she said.

Back in Lamu, many residents viewed mangroves primarily as a source of firewood, building materials and income. Few understood the broader ecological role the forests played in supporting fisheries, protecting coastlines, and sustaining local livelihoods. What began as a self-help group for women evolved into the Mangrove Restoration Initiative, now open to broader community membership.

Like many others in her community, Hassan once believed mangroves would naturally regenerate without human intervention.

"There was a perception that God gave mangroves and that they would always be there," she said. "People thought restoring them was unnecessary."

Mangrove forests were being cleared for timber, construction materials, and other commercial uses. At times, mangroves were exported to Arab countries for products including chalk. This left large stretches of degraded coastline. The scale of the problem became impossible to ignore.

Decades of harvesting had left large stretches of coastline bare, no mangroves, no shade, no buffer against the sea. And without the mangroves, the fish disappeared too.

"The fish were disappe