Bees for Trees: How ForestPlanet is Creating a Sweet Solution for Mangrove Reforestation in Tanzania
Mubaraka with one of his bee hives
2024 was a rough year for Mubaraka. A local entrepreneur with 20 bee hives in the village of Pangani, he has counted on his ~70-liter honey harvest to provide for his family. But last year it was only 40 liters. This brought him only 480,000 Tanzanian shillings for the season (sure sounds like a lot, but it was less than $200 USD), a quarter of his annual income.
The culprit? Too much rain too early in the year (yup, climate change), which threw off the delicate balance of nature. The severe rains knocked off many of the flowers from the mangrove trees that provide pollen for Mubaraka’s buzzing workforce.
It turns out that bees play a crucial role by facilitating pollination between the flowers of all fruiting trees, enabling them to produce seeds. And of course, no seeds = no trees = no fruit to eat or sell in the markets. Sure, there are other pollinators (birds, bats, butterflies, moths, beetles and others) but at the moment at least there is no business opportunity for these in Pangani that we know of.
It’s Really All About the Mangroves
Mangroves are the bread and butter of Pangani, a small coastal fishing village. They are vital nursery grounds for fish and crustaceans, providing shelter and food sources for a wide variety of species, especially during their early life stages.
ForestPlanet’s interest in mangroves also includes other possibilities. We are exploring the potential of voluntary and compliant carbon credits, given that mangroves have exceptional carbon removal abilities. Mangroves store more carbon per unit area than any other ecosystem on Earth. They cover just 0.1 percent of the planet’s surface but store up to 10 times more carbon per hectare than terrestrial forests. These carbon-storing workhorses are a critical part of the solution to climate change.
ForestPlanet’s Business Approach to Mangrove Reforestation
When we learned of Mubaraka’s honey troubles, we saw this as another opportunity to build ecosystems, circular economies, and sustainable livelihoods that make reforestation projects viable. We approached this and all of our other projects through our operating principles:
1) Focus on the local economy. We hire as many local people as possible and pay them good wages by local standards. For our bee project, we started by hiring Ramadan, a well respected carpenter in Pangani. He is building 55 brand-new beehives in 2025 – sturdy wooden boxes about 3 feet wide by a foot tall and a foot wide. “Ram” was able to get 10 built while we were there in February so we got to observe him in action.
Ram working on one of the 55 bee hives he is making for us
These additional beehives won’t just benefit Mubarak. In Pangani, the harvesting of honey is done by a workers’ collective, a group of people who each get a share of the sales. The current 20 beehives support six people at harvest time so getting to 75 beehives would support about twenty collective members this year.
Most of the people we are hiring though are working in the mangrove nurseries. They procure, transport, and prepare the soil, sand, and manure mixture for the small plastic tubes that hold each mangrove seed. They also water, fertilize, and prune the seedlings and are responsible for all of the out-planting once the seedlings are about a year old. With over 350,000 mangrove seedlings in our Pangani nursery right now, they have more than enough work.
A bee hive protecting a mangrove tree
2) Stop people from cutting down trees in the first place. At ForestPlanet we follow the teachings of the late Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. One of her most important quests had to do with human behavior, recognizing that the biggest stress on the land is the stress of human desperation. The main way we try to reduce the despair that drives deforestation is through a living wage. The honey harvest collective is a good example of a keen economic interest that will oppose cutting down any mangrove trees. Beehives are essentially an economic cocoon around the trees.
We also employ other tactics. For instance, part of our “agenda” in Pangani is to place the bee hives in the mangrove trees to reduce the likelihood that the trees will be cut down for firewood.
3) Plant as many beneficial trees as possible. While mangroves are our top priority, we also recognize the need to have a variety of native trees for both economic and biodiversity needs. We are ramping up efforts to grow other fruit-producing trees which will take longer to mature – cashew, avocado, mango, and cacao – and currently have 26,000 small trees. These don’t just produce delicious treats for humans, they’re prime pollen factories for bees.
Mangrove seedlings, future homes for beehives
A Sweet Future?
The “B Team” celebrating ForestPlanet’s visit, Feb 2025
ForestPlanet’s philosophy is simple: If you want to make a lasting ecological impact, make sure as many people as possible in the local community have a long term economic stake in the project. In Pangani, our lasting solution is simultaneously providing income autonomy and reliable nutrition sources for the local people.
Will Mubaraka’s honey production fully recover? Follow our updates to find out! But with many new beehives underway, expanding pollen sources, and lots of locals behind the cause, the odds are looking good. We are optimistic that this will prove to be a win-win-win situation. The bees win. The people of Pangani win. The planet wins.
This project would not be possible without the generous support of the Palmer Foundation. ForestPlanet, Mubaraka and his daughter (at left) and the other people of Pangani village extends our sincerest gratitude.
If you’d like to support our work individual donations are always welcome!