•MAP-Asia Utilizes Soil Excavator to Establish New Mangrove Habitat

By Marc Flegel, MAP-Asia Volunteer Intern from Germany
 
For the first time MAP-Asia is using the help of heavy machinery in the field in order to extend the toolkit of Ecological Mangrove Restoration (EMR) a little bit and undertake a slightly bigger scale demonstration project. 

Excavator adjusting topography in pond at Laem Makham village, Trang province to improve tidal hydrology. 

The site is situated in Laem Makham Village, Sikao district, Trang province and concerning its dimensions and the amount of soil to be moved the use of a backhoe seemed appropriate and necessary this time to get the restoration process started. Also additional manual work is being carried out by villagers and MAP staff on the site to provide a higher grade of accuracy in terms of adjusting the topography and therefore the hydrology which will allow the natural succession of mangrove habitat to take place afterwards.  The personal human effort invested into the EMR-process by the community members own hands, is still the best way to create project-stewardship / ownership. 


Villagers, MAP staff and associates working on site at Laem Makham village, Trang province.

Another novelty for MAP on the Laem Makham site is the fact that this time the site is not an abandoned shrimp pond which was formerly mangrove habitat, but a former rice paddy field  behind the mangrove which was excavated by the government on private property in order to extract fill material for new road construction 10 years ago. But since there is sufficient mangrove vegetation and tidal inundation neighbouring the excavation area MAP decided to explore the establishment of new additional mangrove habitat or afforestation.  


Usage of Autolevel in the field for elevation mapping.

This mangrove creation effort in Laem Makham is embedded in the ongoing MAP-Asia Ecological Mangrove Restoration project under the Global Nature Fund (GNF) project which is being funded by the Federal Ministry for Economical Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Ursula Merz Foundation (Germany). 

NEW VIDEO: For further information about MAP´s work and the GNF project please click on the following link to a short video (4.5 min) :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37bf9MK75_I
 
To learn more about the GNF project "Mangrove Restoration and Reforestation in Asia, a Project for Knowledge Exchange and Action to Protect Climate change, Forest and Biodiversity" please see: http://www.globalnature.org/mangrove-network/

•Demonstrating Ecological Mangrove Restoration at Ban Talae Nok Village

In January of 2009, MAP began work on the Ecological Mangrove Restoration (EMR) demonstration site within the homestay community of Ban Talae Nok village located on the North Andaman Coast in Ranong province. EMR is an alternative method in restoring the full diversity of mangroves habitats by modeling management efforts off of nature rather than plantation-based schemes.  Local partners, including the Ban Talae Nok Youth Group, the Community-Based Tourism (CBT) group and several members of the community are all steadily involved with MAP's staff in fulfilling the project goals. The project is primarily focused on: a) rehabilitating a local abandoned aquaculture pond back to a healthy mangrove habitat, b) increasing the area of Nypa Palm (an important economic mangrove plant for roof thatch production), c) introducing concepts of community management and sustainable resource utilization with the intent of improving the community's capacity in undertaking future conservation work, d) exploring the viability of developing value added products from Nypa Palm as a supplementary income for the BTN fishing community.

Currently, the EMR project has succeeded in initiating the empowerment process of the community while creating a sense of solidarity. This strengthening of the village as a whole has proven very useful in re-establishing a sense of place and entitlement. Upon completion, the EMR site will be a valuable educational resource for others who are interested in modelling the successes of Ban Talae Nok's community-based resource management practices.

MAP-Asia would like to acknowledge the financial support of:

• Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany 
• International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Thailand Program.

Resources: 

• Photo sheet of EMR activities at Ban Talay Nok, Ranong (pdf 4 MB)
• EMR Community Training Workshop Report (pdf 800 KB)
• Short Film on EMR Project at Ban Talay Nok, Ranong (pdf 20 MB)
• Explanation about EMR and a demo of training March 2012

• Ecological Mangrove Restoration at Bang Lang Da Village, Krabi
  

Wetlands International – Thailand Office, Mangrove Action Project and the Asia Pacific Forum for Environment and Development have joined together to restore a former aquaculture pond back to a functioning mangrove ecosystem, in partnership with the local people. This rehabilitation has provided a test-bed for the development and demonstration of low-cost techniques to implement ‘ecological mangrove rehabilitation’, which re-establishes the site’s natural hydrology, topography and facilitates natural regeneration. Nypa palm in particular has been encouraged as it is used extensively but sustainably by the local people in their livelihood activities.

Originally the site used to be mangrove, but was cleared for aquaculture approximately 10 years ago. The resulting 0.75ha pond was used for about 5 years before being abandoned. Three years ago the mud wall abutting the concrete sluice gate eroded sufficiently for tidal flushing to be re-established. However, despite sufficient flushing, natural regeneration was not occurring due to the pond floor being too low. Thus the team surveyed the pond and developed a plan to improve the hydrology by excavating a series of channels and with the spoil make new hillocks, to mimic what a natural mangrove would look like.

This work has allowed the testing of various ideas, digging techniques, tools, exploration of how much a meter of channel takes to dig, dibbling experimentation, erosion tests and so on. The site has already had many groups of visitors who have been interested to learn about EMR. The progress can be followed at http://www.mangroverehabilitation.blogspot.com.

APFED Final EMR Report (PDF) 1.7 MB
APFED Project EMR Powerpoint Presentation

MAP-Asia would like to acknowledge the financial support of: