Sri Lanka empowers women to protect mangroves

By Stephanie McCauley
April 27, 2016

The government of Sri Lanka is helping support a new program to empower women in protecting the mangroves in their country. Mangroves protect against floods, provide important habitats, and can sequester 5 times as much carbon as other forests of the same size. The program will provide microloans to 15,000 women in exchange for protecting forests through persuasion or by contacting authorities and not using trees for firewood.

Climate Protection: Reduces carbon in the atmosphere Resilience: Protects against flooding Food & Water: Provides habitats for fish and cleans water Jobs & Assets: Offers increased income for women Health, Well-Being, & Safety: Improves women’s safety and health by giving them a less hazardous livelihood Connection: Allows women to contribute to the preservation of their natural environment

This post is part of a series on examples of multisolving, or climate-smart policies that simultaneously work to mitigate climate change while providing co-benefits such as the ones described above. The multiple benefits analysis was done using the FLOWER framework.