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Mangroves can store up to four times more carbon than tropical forests. But since 1980, 50% of mangroves in Ecuador have disappeared due to intensive aquaculture activities, wood harvesting, and urban development.
Photo and video courtesy of Jan De Nul AquaForest is a 50 hectare mangrove island created with locally dredged material, a blueprint for mangrove restoration worldwide.
Since January 2023, Jan De Nul has been working to create this new mangrove forest using dredged material from the access channel of Guayaquil.
The company is coordinating the AquaForest project together with their partners South Pole, Mantis Consulting, Haedes, University ESPOL, University of Antwerp, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the NGO Fundación Calisur.
The project is supported by the Government of Flanders (Departement Omgeving) through the G-STIC Climate Action Programme 2022, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).