Northern Mozambique Channel named World Restoration Flagship region

During the Third United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France in 2025, the Northern Mozambique Channel was named one of three new World Restoration Flagship regions under the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, an initiative led by the UN Environment Programme and FAO. The Northern Mozambique Channel (NMC) is one of the world’s most bio-diverse regions, hosting an array of critical habitats and breeding and foraging grounds for marine and migratory species. Yet the natural treasures of the NMC are under siege from urban development, gas and oil extraction, population growth, and climate change. Such new uses of the NMC must be properly and sustainably managed if the NMC’s valuable resources—and the future prosperity they can provide—are to be preserved. The NoCaMo project, funded by the Fonds Français pour L’Environnement Mondial (FFEM), aims to ensure that the high biodiversity value of the Northern Mozambique Channel’s (NMC) coral reefs, seagrass, and mangrove ecosystems are maintained by 2025. Four organizations—the Nairobi Convention, World Conservation Society, CORDIO, and World Wildlife Fund-Madagasar are responsible for achieving the project’s outcomes.