Piloting an Innovative Seascape Financing Approach in Tanzania
Project Lead: WWF-UK
Supporting Partners: WWF Tanzania, WWF Madagascar (WWF SWIO Regional hub), Finance Earth, Ocean Hub Africa, Fisheries Education and Training Agency (FETA)
Financial Support: The UK’s Blue Planet Fund
Location: Rufiji-Mafia-Kilwa (RUMAKI) Seascape, Tanzania
Project Timeline/Status: October 2024- March 2026
Project Summary
WWF is piloting an innovative approach to financing sustainable blue entrepreneurship in Tanzania’s Rufiji-Mafia-Kilwa (RUMAKI) Seascape. This initiative aims to develop sustainable blue economy opportunities while addressing two critical challenges in community-led conservation: poverty and limited financial resources. The project targets the NYAMANJISOPOJA Collaborative Fisheries Management Area (CFMA), a community-led management area in the buffer zone of the RUMAKI Seascape, with the potential to scale across the Southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO) region.
This approach will combine different revenue streams – such as blue enterprises, user fees and payments for ecosystem services – to attract large-scale financing and create investment opportunities for coastal communities. By improving financial stability in the CFMA, the project enables local communities to manage their natural resources more sustainably, reducing ecosystem damage, preserving biodiversity, and strengthening socio-economic resilience.
Challenge
The RUMAKI Seascape is the most biologically productive and diverse marine area in East Africa, home to over 50% of Tanzania’s carbon-rich mangrove forest.
Coastal communities are the primary stewards of these invaluable ecosystems, relying on the abundant marine life for their food, nutrition, livelihoods and coastal protection.
Despite the importance of this symbiotic relationship between communities and nature, long-term financing for sustainable livelihood initiatives and conservation efforts remains inadequate and reliant on donor and philanthropic funding.
Solution
By developing a robust portfolio of sustainable blue economy enterprises across the CFMA Seascape and prototyping an innovative financing approach, it will enable finance to flow at scale to the seascape. The approach will create an investment structure that is larger in size, increasing investment opportunities, and seek to address key constraints associated with financial sustainability for the development of CFMA conservation and management plans and individual coastal community-level enterprises.
Scaling and Next Steps
The project outputs, successes and lessons will be shared with field teams and partners across WWF’s 15 operational seascapes in five SWIO countries to facilitate replication. In addition, the findings will benefit the ongoing work with coastal communities in 34 countries worldwide, where 70+ investible social and conservation enterprises are being developed. The lessons will also be shared across the global ORRAA and regional Our Blue Future platforms.
“Coastal communities are stewards of ecosystems across the SWIO region, but this role remains underappreciated and under-resourced. This project aims to unlock the necessary support for people, nature and climate.” – Dr Samantha Petersen, WWF SWIO Regional Programme Lead.