SeedforSea

An initiative by
Gemalink International Port

The project at a glance

Context

Deepwater ports are developing rapidly in emerging countries and transport companies, mainly multinational groups, are directly or indirectly involved in the development of these ports.

Why Mangroves

First because mangroves play a crucial role to fight climate change, being a huge carbon sink protecting coasts and preserving people and facilitating livelihood. Second, mangroves are destroyed rapidly around the globe due to human developments more particularly deepwater ports.

Objectives

To develop a compensation system, open to all concerned stakeholders, allowing to compensate the impact on biodiversity and environment related to port developments more particularly mangroves which are widely present in the emerging countries where port developments are underway.

We draw our inspiration from the Mekong Delta

Mangroves constitute an important part of Vietnam’s ecology as they protect coasts from erosion, prevent salinization, and mitigate natural disasters.

They are also home to diverse aquatic species and provide livelihoods to local people The Mekong Delta hosts 60 of the total mangrove area in Vietnam. Mangrove forests in the Mekong Delta faced a significant decline during the last decades due to the conversion of mangroves to shrimp farms, overexploitation of forestry resources and the development of coastal industries such as port infrastructures.

The Mekong Delta is also only 80 cm above the sea level which makes it very vulnerable to rising water levels.

Many hectares of tidal areas have been identified and are now available for plantation.

The minimum investment is 1 hectare. Each plot may bear the name of the company that financed the reforestation. An official certificate will be issued by the local authorities on behalf of the Sponsor Our goal is to convince enough sponsors to finance the first 50 hectares.

Of course, these lands as well as the mangroves remain the entire property of Vietnam, no transfer of property is realized in the framework of this project.

60%

Of Vietnam mangrove is
in Mekong Delta

10+

organizations have already
joined the initiative

4000+

new specimens will be planted

How does it work?

SeedforSea is a platform that allows key players in the supply chain (shippers, shipping companies, freight forwarders, terminal operators) to participate in various offset projects such as mangrove reforestation.

Through SeedforSea, companies wishing to reduce or neutralize their carbon footprint will be able to participate in such project and acquire Verified Emission Reduction (VER) credits which are verified by an independent third party and are developed and calculated in accordance with existing VER standards.

It’s not all about carbon credit

SeedforSea will also allow interested companies to participate in educational trips or seminars to engage and educate their own employees about the importance of these natural environments in the fight against climate change and for the preservation of biodiversity. In addition, local people will benefit from environmentally friendly jobs that can protect the mangrove from further decline due to over exploitation and create income for local communities.

*Verified Emission Reduction certificate

Our motto: reliable
and simple

Service Contract

Planting Season

• Minimum 70% survival rate
• Location of plantation
• Characteristics of plantation
• Tons of carbon reduction
• Name of investor

• Monitor condition and survival rate
• Protection of seedings

After 4 years the new forest / mangrove will returm under forest dept. control

The project comes to life

Our partner and project developer has already planted over 100 hectares of mangroves and forests in the Mekong Delta since 2019.

The next step will be to reforest in June 2022, GEMALINK INT’L PORT contributed to the reforestation of 2 hectares of mangrove in Tra Vinh province, with an endangered specie listed in the IUCN red list, the Intsia Bijuga.

This specie counts only 100 remaining specimens in the whole province. The project will allow to plant 4,000 new specimens which will have grown for almost a year in our partner’s nursery.