Indonesia Mangrove and Blue Carbon Grants 2026: EUR 2-4 Million per Project from the Blue Action Fund

A correction before anything else

This page previously described an “Indonesia Blue Carbon Community Grant” offering up to IDR 9,000,000,000 per community coalition, attributed to the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (KKP) and linked to Conservation International, with a deadline of 28 July 2025. That listing does not hold up.

No official source confirms a grant programme by that name or at that amount. The URL the listing pointed to, conservation.org/places/indonesia, is Conservation International’s general Indonesia country page. It is a live page, but it carries no call for applications, no IDR 9 billion figure, no eligibility rules and no deadline. Searches of KKP, Conservation International and Konservasi Indonesia material return no programme matching the description. The closest real figure is a blue carbon cooperation between Indonesia’s ICCTF and Agence Française de Développement worth EUR 620,000 (roughly IDR 9.9 billion), reported by AFD — but that is a bilateral cooperation budget between institutions, not a per-community grant that villages or cooperatives can apply for.

If you found this page while looking for money for mangrove work in Indonesia, do not spend another week chasing the IDR 9 billion figure. It appears to be an error. What follows is a real, open, application-based call that funds exactly this kind of work in Indonesia.

At a Glance

What the Blue Action Fund is funding

Blue Action Fund is a foundation that supports the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and works toward the 2030 Agenda, in particular SDG 14. It is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Agence Française de Développement, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, and Irish Aid. It has also received funding from the Green Climate Fund for Ecosystem-based Adaptation work in the Western Indian Ocean.

The fund awards grants through open, competitive calls. Its 2026 call, launched in June 2026 and closing 16 October 2026, is a new funding window built around three things at once:

• Establishing new protected areas (PAs) or other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs), or improving management of existing ones, with a focus on mangrove ecosystems;
• Protection, restoration and sustainable use of mangroves, contributing to biodiversity conservation, climate mitigation and adaptation, and improved livelihoods;
• Advancing high-integrity blue carbon initiatives toward carbon crediting.

The stated objective is to address the financing gap and to de-risk early-stage development of high-integrity blue carbon initiatives, pairing credible carbon pathways with long-term area-based conservation, better PA and OECM management, and benefits for coastal communities. Blue Action notes it is aiming to increase the EUR 17 million envelope with additional funding, which could bring additional requirements during full proposal development.

Indonesia is one of four eligible countries. That is the real opportunity for Indonesian coastal work — but the door is narrower than the old listing suggested, and it opens in a different place.

Who can actually apply

This is the part where the old listing was most misleading. It described village cooperatives applying directly for community grants. Blue Action’s call is written for a different applicant.

Eligible applicants are charitable non-government organisations or consortia of NGOs with proven experience in mangrove conservation and/or restoration, blue carbon project development, and sustainable livelihoods. Specific requirements include:

• Technical depth. Consortia must include, or demonstrate access to, expertise in carbon accounting, MRV systems, methodology application, financial feasibility assessment, and PDD (project design document) preparation. Consortium members must submit a signed letter of intent of collaboration.
• Match funding of at least 25% of total project costs. A larger share is described as highly desirable and is taken into account during appraisal.
• Safeguards experience. Applicants must have experience with environmental and social management systems and stakeholder engagement. Projects are expected to apply free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) processes in line with applicable international standards and the Blue Action ESMS.
• Prior preparatory work. Projects must build on existing work and show technical and institutional readiness for carbon crediting. At a minimum that means documented pre-feasibility or feasibility-level assessments: defined project geography, tenure and stakeholder mapping, regulatory scoping, financial viability assessment, carbon stock assessments, additionality assessment, or equivalent analyses. The call states plainly that projects starting from initial scoping or a purely conceptual stage are not eligible.
• Site quality. Proposed areas must meet a minimum level of effective protection and management based on recognised national or international frameworks such as the MPA Atlas or IUCN Green List. OECMs must meet internationally recognised criteria — clearly defined boundaries, appropriate governance arrangements, and management delivering sustained, long-term biodiversity outcomes — with reference to IUCN and CBD guidance.
• National endorsement. Every project must be endorsed by the appropriate national authority or authorised body of the country where it will be implemented.

For an Indonesian village cooperative, women’s group or kelompok tani mangrove, the realistic route into this money is not as the lead applicant. It is as a core partner inside a consortium led by an NGO that already has carbon accounting capacity and a track record. That is a different strategy from writing your own proposal, and it is worth being honest about it early rather than after four months of drafting.

What the projects have to look like

Blue Action lists the shape of proposals it wants to receive:

• Implemented in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam or India;
• A Blue Action contribution of between EUR 2 and 4 million, following the eligible cost and budget structure in Section 2.3 of the Grant Procedures Manual;
• Completable within five years or less;
• Supporting ecologically representative systems of PAs and/or OECMs, with restoration and/or conservation of mangrove ecosystems covering a minimum of 1,000 hectares. Applicants are asked to show that the scale of the intervention gives a credible basis for a financially viable blue carbon project;
• Supporting sustainable livelihoods and strengthening governance and participation of coastal communities, including capacity building, equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms, and gender equity;
• Demonstrating a credible pathway toward generation of high-integrity carbon credits.

That last requirement carries the most detail, and it is where most weak applications will fall over. The call asks applicants to:

• Explain the intended route to market and potential buyers. Blue Action states it does not intend to support projects primarily designed to offset continued fossil fuel expansion, mining or similar. Projects must be transparent about intended market pathways and claims, avoid double claiming, and comply with national and international regulatory requirements — national authorisation under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement should be aimed for.
• Advance market development based on high-quality standards, working toward submission to a recognised carbon crediting standard aligned with the ICVCM Core Carbon Principles and the High-Quality Blue Carbon Principles and Guidance (Plan Vivo, Verra VM0033 and Gold Standard are named as examples), and ideally meeting Article 6 acceptance criteria.
• Start with activities on the ground — restoration and/or conservation that will sequester CO2 and/or avoid emissions. This is not a paper-preparation grant.
• Show a clear understanding of governance arrangements and regulatory frameworks for carbon rights and land-use rights at national and, where relevant, sub-national level, plus awareness of the intended carbon standard’s requirements.
• Show a credible pathway to financial sustainability, including long-term funding for PA management and benefits for coastal communities, with indicative assumptions about carbon revenues, implementation costs, and how revenues would be allocated between conservation management, communities and other stakeholders.
• Assess the potential role of risk transfer mechanisms, including parametric insurance, in strengthening long-term resilience and financial sustainability of mangrove ecosystems and coastal communities.

Two adaptations to the standard rules matter for mangrove applicants. Blue Action’s Grant Procedures Manual normally requires projects to sit in marine waters — territorial waters and/or exclusive economic zones. For this window, mangrove ecosystems are explicitly included, even where they fall outside strictly defined marine waters, provided a clear ecological and functional link to coastal and marine systems is shown. Separately, the usual 5% cap on Blue Action contribution spent outside the target region may be raised to as much as 20% where justified by the technical requirements of blue carbon development, such as carbon accounting or other specialised expertise. Applicants should also use the result matrix in the grant application template for this window; Annex 1 of the GPM does not apply here.

Timeline and how to apply

Blue Action runs a two-stage process. The first stage is the Grant Application, which is competitive. Selected applicants are then invited to the Full Proposal Development stage, which is non-competitive — a collaborative, iterative process with Blue Action covering technical revision, the results framework (logframe), a detailed budget, and preparation of environmental and social safeguards including screening, scoping and a full risk assessment. A preparatory grant supports that second stage.

The published timeline for this call:

To apply, complete the Grant Application template and send it electronically in Word or PDF format, under 5MB, to [email protected] with the subject line “[your organisation] Grant Application” by 16 October 2026. Other documents relevant to applicants are published at https://www.blueactionfund.org/documents. The call should be read alongside Blue Action’s Grant Procedures Manual and its Environmental and Social Management System; unless the call says otherwise, all provisions of those documents apply.

Working backward from 16 October 2026

There are under three months left as this page is updated. That is tight but not impossible for an organisation that already has feasibility work in hand — and effectively impossible for one that does not, because prior assessments are an eligibility condition, not a nice-to-have.

Now: Confirm you clear the hard filters. Are you a charitable NGO or able to form a consortium led by one? Do you have documented pre-feasibility or feasibility-level analysis for a specific site? Can you cover 25% match funding? Is your site inside, or capable of becoming, a PA or a qualifying OECM covering at least 1,000 hectares of mangrove? If any answer is no, your realistic target is the next call rather than this one.

Next two weeks: Download the Grant Application template and the GPM from the documents page and read Section 2.3 on eligible costs before writing a single budget line. Lock in consortium partners and start the signed letters of intent — those take longer than people expect.

August: Draft the carbon pathway section first, not last. It is the newest requirement, the most technical, and the one most likely to expose gaps in your team. Decide which standard you are aiming at and be able to explain why.

September: Draft the livelihoods, governance and benefit-sharing content with the communities involved, not about them. Start the national endorsement conversation — government sign-off is a documented requirement and does not move at proposal speed.

Early October: Internal approvals, budget reconciliation against the narrative, and a final check that the file is under 5MB in Word or PDF. Send it several days before 16 October rather than on the day.

Questions worth answering honestly

Is there any Indonesian government grant matching the old IDR 9 billion description? None could be found. KKP administers marine and fisheries programmes and Indonesia has an active national mangrove agenda, but no published call matches the name, amount or deadline this page previously carried. If you have seen an official KKP announcement of such a programme, treat the official KKP publication as the authority, not this page.

Can a village cooperative apply on its own? Not to this call. Eligible applicants are charitable NGOs or NGO consortia with proven experience in mangrove work and blue carbon development. Community organisations belong in the project as partners and beneficiaries with real decision-making roles, which the call explicitly asks about through governance, participation, benefit-sharing and gender equity requirements.

Does the whole project have to be about carbon credits? No, but the credit pathway is mandatory. The call combines area-based conservation, mangrove restoration and sustainable use, and progress toward high-integrity carbon crediting. A proposal that covers restoration and livelihoods but has no credible carbon route misses one of three stated pillars.

What if we are not ready by October 2026? Blue Action has run open calls roughly annually — past windows covered the Eastern Tropical Pacific in 2024, the Asia-Pacific region in 2023, the Wider Caribbean in 2022 and Africa’s Atlantic coast in 2021. Watch the funding opportunities page for the next one, and use the intervening time to complete the feasibility work that this call requires up front.

Where to go next

All authoritative details, the full call text, and the application template are on Blue Action Fund’s own site:

Blue Action Fund funding opportunities

Read the call document and the Grant Procedures Manual before you commit resources. Where anything on this page differs from Blue Action’s published materials, their documents are correct and this page is not.