(AFP) - Mozambique has approved Africa's largest mangrove restoration project with 200 million trees to be planted over 60 years, the developer which bagged the licence said on Thursday.

Gulf-based Blue Forest said it would start work in November, adding it had obtained the licence after around two-and-a-half years of feasibility studies.

"We will start planting the first of the 200 million mangroves in Quelimane, Zambezia, this November, in line with the start of the rainy season in Mozambique," Blue Forest founder and CEO Vahid Fotuhi told AFP.

The project aims to cover an area spanning 155,000 hectares (over 383,000 acres), or twice the size of Singapore, he said.

The trees will restore Mozambique's degraded coastline and create around 5,000 forestry jobs, Fotuhi added.

Mangroves are one of the world’s most efficient plants at capturing carbon dioxide and their tangled roots stabilise coastlines and reduce erosion, also providing shelter for fish and other creatures.

Mozambique has an extensive mangrove ecosystem which has been damaged by cyclones and flooding as well as logging and clearing.

Over its 60-year lifespan, the MozBlue project is expected to remove about 20.4 million tons of CO2, contributing to efforts to mitigate climate change, Fotuhi said.

© Agence France-Presse