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 Makam 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 Makam 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).

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/