Establishing the Restoration Insurance Service Company

Project Lead: Conservation International
Financial Support: In-Kind
Location: Philippines

Summary 

Mangroves are extremely valuable ecosystems, but they are highly threatened due to a lack of understanding of their economic, biodiversity and carbon-storing benefits. To capture the economic value of mangroves, ORRAA member Conservation International is creating the Restoration Insurance Service Company (RISCO), a new business model for sustainably financing mangrove conservation and restoration through revenues from blue carbon credit sales and insurance-related payments.

Challenge 

Mangroves are extremely valuable ecosystems. They deliver irreplaceable climate adaptation and mitigation, offer numerous biodiversity benefits, and are among the most carbon-dense ecosystems on Earth, storing up to 10 times more carbon than terrestrial forests.

Yet insufficient recognition of the economic benefits of mangrove forests, combined with a lack of knowledge on how to carry out or sustainably finance their conservation and restoration, continue to contribute to their loss. An estimated 25% of the world’s mangroves have been lost in the past 20 years alone.

Solution

ORRAA member Conservation International (CI) is creating a Restoration Insurance Service Company (RISCO) to capture the economic value of threatened mangroves and generate sustainable funding for conservation and restoration through two revenue streams: 1) insurance-related payments for the modelled flood risk reduction benefits of mangroves and 2) blue carbon credit payments for the validated climate mitigation value of mangroves.

RISCO will be the first instrument to sustainably finance mangrove conservation and restoration through revenues from both blue carbon credit sales and insurance-related payments. RISCO will also work with the insurance industry to develop new products that incorporate the value of the risk mitigation benefits of mangroves.

With the help of in-country coordinators, local experts and champions were identified and the scope of the full CORVI Assessment was streamlined to cover priority risk areas. Workshops with 30-50 stakeholders from government, civil society, and the private sector have helped incorporate local expertise into the Rapid Assessment process. The project will compile risk scores and draft risk profiles for each pilot country before holding a final workshop to discuss the results and findings with stakeholders from each pilot country. Finally, the project will disseminate the results of the Rapid Assessment and discuss next steps with national governments. 

Scalability and Next Steps

CI is beginning work in two RISCO pilot sites in the Philippines. Upon completion of these pilots, CI plans to establish RISCO as a social enterprise to generate revenue for mangrove conservation and restoration, enable knowledge-sharing, networking and training and replicate the RISCO model in other countries such as Costa Rica, Indonesia and Vietnam.