Mangrove Waqf
Mangrove forests provide a wide range of ecosystem services – fisheries, coastal protection, and in carbon sequestration; and there are many hundreds of thousands of hectares of unprotected mangrove forests that are held by private landowners.
Our concept is simple: for private individuals and companies to purchase these forests, rehabilitate them if needed, and place them into a waqf thus preserving them until the end of time.
The protection that the waqf status provides will ensure that the ecosystem services and carbon sequestration will be maintained and as documented in the Sighah- the waqf deed, no future carbon credits will be generated for sale or speculation and allow the wakif to count this preserved carbon as part of any voluntary offset.
Origin of the Mangrove Waqf idea
As-salāmu ʿalaykum wa-raḥmatu -llāhi wa-barakātuh
Not long ago, in Lombok, Indonesia, I happened to meet an older man called Mr. Zamzani who owns 10 hectares of mangrove forest. The land was a failed shrimp farm that he had replanted with mangroves and the intent to harvest them- cut them down, and turn the trees into charcoal.
He had met a carbon offset investor, whom he referred to as a “carbon cowboy”, who had offered to pay Mr. Zamzani for the carbon offsets generated by him NOT cutting his mangrove trees- but only after twenty years.
Mr. Zamzani had lamented to me that he could be dead in twenty years and he wanted the money from his mangroves now so that he could go for hajj; and hence, the the mangrove waqf was conceived.
Tim Ahmed, Founder Mangrove Waqf & Aquaculture Entrepreneur
Characteristics of Waqf
The three key characteristics of waqf are:
Perpetuity- with the status being unaltered until the Day of Judgment.
Irrevocability- once a property has been declared a waqf property, it cannot be revoked.
Inalienability- absolute ownership has been transferred from the wakif to God.
The permanence of a waqf makes the concept ideal for long-term conservation of natural assets such as mangrove forests.
Mangrove Waqf focus: Indonesia
Indonesia is home to the most Muslims and mangroves in the world with 25% of the world’s mangrove forests and over 600,000 hectares in need of regeneration and permanent protection.
Mangrove Waqf framework
The mangrove waqf concept is a more defined iteration of the Green Waqf Framework as outlined in 2022 by:
The Indonesia Waqf Board (BWI)
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP-lndonesia)
Waqf Center for Indonesian Development and Studies (WaCIDS)
Green Waqf Organization
This framework covers the concept, stages, successful indicators, stakeholder mapping, and policy implications for future development of Green Waqf in Indonesia, based on experiences of related stakeholders in Indonesia.
Voluntary carbon offsetting via the Mangrove Waqf:
Mangrove forests provide a wide range of ecosystem services – fisheries, coastal protection, and carbon sequestration – with an estimated value of $USD194,000 per hectare per year and are among the most carbon-rich biomes on the planet containing an average of 937 tons of carbon per hectare.
This has attracted interest from carbon credit developers to attempt to monetize these carbon stocks for personal monetary enrichment by generating- and then selling- mangrove carbon credits on the voluntary carbon market.
The Mangrove Waqf is against private gain from a public environmental resource but supports individuals and companies (Wakif) who wish to voluntarily offset their carbon footprint.
We work with the Unversity of Mataram in Lombok, Indonesia to survey and quantify the stored carbon in the mangrove Waqf property (the Mauquf), report this to the Wakif, and as part of the deed (Sighah) ensure that the stored carbon (or future potential) is recorded and as part of the property deed, and once Waqfed cannot be sold or traded in the future and thus, if the Wakif chooses, could note these offsets as part of their voluntary carbon commitment.