Indira NairSundarbans, BangladeshLive

Mangrove Guardians Cooperative

A community cooperative restoring mangrove belts for coastal defense, fisheries, and blue carbon income.

Social EmpowermentBlue CarbonCommunity

About this project

Mangrove Guardians Cooperative is a high-integrity, community-driven mangrove restoration project with strong social design (women-led cooperative) and an intention to use a dMRV layer. Scores are high for scientific alignment and community engagement, while gaps remain in publicly documented methods, baseline/ counterfactual definition, permanence/ leakage safeguards, and explicit open-data commitments.

AI summary by the Ozeaon Climate Intelligence System

Why this integrity score?

The OCIS Integrity Report below explains the reasoning behind the headline score — dimension by dimension — and is readable in full here.

Score Reasoning — Dimensions

The headline score is a weighted sum of six integrity dimensions assessed by the Ozeaon Climate Intelligence System.

Scientific Rigor20% weight
85
Approach matches peer-reviewed mangrove restoration science and blue carbon literature, but no public, project-specific protocol or peer-reviewed monitoring plan was provided.
Open Science15% weight
75
Project states use of a dMRV layer but does not specify what datasets, repositories, or licenses will be published, limiting reproducibility.
Measurability (dMRV)20% weight
84
Presence of a dMRV layer and community monitoring is promising, though key details (baselines, remote-sensing methods, sampling design, QA/QC and verification process) are not provided.
Additionality & Impact15% weight
80
Restoration in degraded coastal belts with local stewardship likely delivers real carbon and ecosystem benefits, but lack of a clear counterfactual and leakage assessment reduces confidence.
Transparency & Governance15% weight
82
Cooperative and women-led governance are strengths, but the proposal omits explicit fund-flow reporting, legal tenure statements, and grievance/benefit-sharing mechanisms.
Community & Equity15% weight
90
Strong emphasis on local, women-led teams, paid work, and stewardship suggests high social integrity, though social safeguards and livelihood monitoring metrics should be formalised.

Strengths

Community-led, women-centered cooperative model that builds local capacity and local ownership.
Integrated objectives: coastal protection, fisheries co-benefits, and blue carbon income increase project resilience and local relevance.
Intent to use a dMRV layer and community monitoring shows commitment to measurable outcomes and technology-enabled verification.
Alignment with established scientific principles for mangrove restoration (e.g., hydrology first, native species, survival-focused planting).

Risks & Gaps

No public project protocol or detailed monitoring plan provided — weakens reproducibility and external scientific review.
Unclear baseline/counterfactual and leakage handling — threatens the credibility of claimed additionality for carbon credits.

dMRV Recommendation

Tier

Tier 2 — Operational

Cadence

Baseline pre-restoration; community monitoring quarterly; biomass and soil carbon sampling annually (with deeper soil sampling on a 3–5 year cadence); independent verification annually or every 2 years; public reporting annually.

Recommended

Yes

The project already intends to use a dMRV layer and has operational community monitoring capacity, which fits a Tier 2 operational dMRV: combination of remote sensing + in-situ sampling, regular community-based data collection, and scheduled verification. This balances feasibility (community resources) with the rigor needed for credible carbon and ecosystem service claims. To advance to Tier 3, publish detailed protocols, open datasets, and a formal verification and permanence strategy.

Remote sensing: Sentinel-2/Landsat time series + high-resolution (Planet or drone) for canopy and land-cover changeUAV (drone) photogrammetry for canopy structure and area estimationIn-situ permanent plots for biomass (allometric measurements) and survival monitoringSoil core sampling to standardized depth (e.g., 1 m) for sediment organic carbon

About this project

Generating OCIS summary & integrity report…