July 26 is Mangrove Action Day

Mangroves: Our Life, Our Food
As part of this year’s Mangrove Action Day we are raising awareness of the connections people have with mangrove forests by creating a global photography exhibition. We invite you to send us your best photos for a chance to be part of a special exhibition that will help spread the importance of mangroves. Check out our website to get inspired by mangroves themes and find out other ways in which you can get involved! Since 1998 the 26th of July has been called the "International Day of Mangroves" or “Mangrove Action Day,” commemorating the Greenpeace activist Hayhow Daniel Nanoto, who died of a heart attack while involved in a massive protest action in Ecuador led by the environmental organizations FUNDECOl (Ecuador) and the crew from the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior. This Mangrove Action Day, please step forward with MAP to help reverse the loss of mangrove forests and protect the rights of coastal communities to sustainably manage and conserve their coastal wetlands and the myriad of life sustained by the mangroves. READ MORE
 
AFRICA
 
Helping Africa’s Fishermen Reclaim Their Livelihoods

LIBERIA – Fishery resources, particularly in Africa, are in a precarious state. It is estimated that nearly 6 million fishermen and women live in poverty, many in rural Africa (FAO, 2014). Yet the fish trade generates livelihoods for more than 100 million people (FAO, 2014) and represents a critical source of nutrition. In Liberia and Sierra Leone, for example, progress on fisheries management is more crucial than ever as the two countries work to recover from devastating Ebola outbreaks. (Sierra Leone, while not Ebola free, has significantly reduced the outbreak and threat to communities, with a recovery predicted this summer.) Recent increases in local fish catches have helped these countries meet nutritional needs and achieve food security as agriculture and livestock production continue to decline in the wake of disease. But this would not have been possible if illegal trawling had not been investigated and discouraged as part of the World Bank’s West Africa Regional Fisheries Program (WARFP). READ MORE
 
Fisheries development to receive US$91m support
MOZAMBIQUE – Sustainable fisheries development along the East Africa coast and in the South West Indian Ocean (SWIO) region is to receive World Bank financial support, following recent approval of a US$91 million fisheries loan and grant package aimed at improving regional cooperation and management of near shore and deep sea marine resources. Sustainable fisheries development along the East Africa coast and in the South West Indian Ocean (SWIO) region is to receive World Bank financial support, following recent approval of a US$91 million fisheries loan and grant package aimed at improving regional cooperation and management of near shore and deep sea marine resources.  To be used over the next six years, the various loans and grants include funding for fisheries schemes in Mozambique, Tanzania and Comoros.  The overall project also includes a grant to support work undertaken by the Indian Ocean Commission. This will benefit the member countries of the South West Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission and French overseas territories in the region which include La Reunion and several other islands with extensive Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). READ MORE
 
ASIA
 
Hope for Indonesia's valuable but threatened mangroves

INDONESIA – Indonesia is home to the largest tracts of mangrove forests on earth – but they are disappearing at a rate of up to 2% a year, faster than anywhere else in the world. A study by Conservation International (CI) in West Papua province is trying to determine the potential value of these mangroves, both for Indonesia – the world’s third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases – and for the Papuan communities that live among them. Threatened mangroves and coastal marine ecosystems in general get far less attention than tropical rainforests in climate negotiations, despite the many useful services they provide. Mangroves are highly efficient carbon sinks, absorbing up to five times as much carbon dioxide as tropical forests. They are also important ecosystems, providing spawning grounds and habitat for hundreds of species, many of them commercially important. They are natural barriers to tropical storm surges and even contain chemicals effective in fighting cancer. Aquaculture and agriculture – shrimp farming and palm oil in particular – are the biggest threat to Indonesia’s mangroves. CI estimates emissions from mangrove, sea grass and tidal marsh degradation are equivalent to the total annual emissions of the UK. The current study’s long term aim is to develop coastal management models that harness and monetise the carbon sequestering potential of Indonesia’s mangroves, which translates as somewhere in the region of 30m tonnes of carbon dioxide not entering the atmosphere. READ MORE
 
Valuable mangroves, lost and regained
INDIA – Degradation of Pichavaram mangroves started in 1930s, when the British government introduced clear-felling system of management. In this system, mangrove forests were clear-felled in small coupes of about 15 to 20 hectare every year until 1970s. Clear-felling of mangrove trees exposed the mangrove wetlands to the sun. The soil contains nearly 80 per cent water, which evaporated . Evaporation of water caused depression in soil . Saline water entered these depressions and became stagnant. Again, evaporation of the stagnant water over a period of time increased soil salinity to a level in which a mangrove cannot survive. The M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation developed and demonstrated simple and cost effective method to restore degraded areas of Pichavaram mangroves. It was done as research project in small area of about 10 hectares. Later, the MSSRF extended the restoration and conservation of mangrove wetlands of Pichavaram in partnership with the Tamil Nadu Forest Department and the local community. Now all the degraded areas – about 800 ha in total – have been restored. READ MORE
 
Seeking and exploring Mangrove Forests for breeding and hatching-Migrating birds from abroad
INDIA – Some of the particular different kinds of birds named, like Water Crow, Stork, Egret, Green Heron , Black Pelican from India and abroad began to migrate and to dwell for breeding or hatching in and around the coastal areas of Mangrove Forests wherever, the plants grow easily, or normally at Pitchavaram, Thiyagavalli, PortoNova, Nanamedu villages and its besides.   The Aalamaram (NGO), of  Thiyagavalli village took various steps to protect the forest of mangrove plantations and to ban those birds are being hunted regularly. And when, the hunters destroy their nests of the birds for hatching and for breeding its young ones. At the time of North –West monsoon . As spread the back water river in hence with whole area of Mangrove Forests.  The different   kinds of birds migrate here usually, and breed and hatch its young ones. VIEW SOURCE
 
Mangroves against monsoons

SRI LANKA – Residents of Sri Lanka’s north-western coast are convinced that well-tended mangroves can protect lives and property against the monsoon rains that lash the island from July to October.  The mangroves that Milan Gamage, a 35-year-old mother, planted behind her home on the edge of the Puttalam lagoon in 2008 are now mature enough to shield her modest residence from heavy rains, tides and high winds. “The plants break the force of the waves, the rain and the wind, so we don’t get battered as we used to in the past,” Gamage says. The mangroves were planted under a project initiated by the Small Fishers Foundation of Sri Lanka (Sudeesa), a national non-governmental organisation working with the small fisher community. Over the last decade, Sudeesa has planted over 170,000 new mangrove plants in 860 hectares around the Puttalam Lagoon that is home to the largest extent of mangroves in Sri Lanka at 3,200 hectares. READ MORE
 
AMERICAS
 
JULY 26 – Day of the Mangroves – Our Food: Our Life

GUATEMALA –  Our theme for the International Day for the defense of the mangrove ecosystem, July 26 is “Mangroves: Our food, Our Life”. The mangrove is the principal source of food for communities and native peoples. So we must vindicate the public nature of the marine-coastal territory and the collective rights of communities and native peoples to decide how resources are used in the territory for food. Privatization and land grabbing, resource extraction and over-exploitation for entrepreneurs and private interests pose a threat to food sovereignty. It is important to defend subsistence fishing of large-scale industrial practices that endanger the future of coastal marine resources. MAS (En Espanol)

Miami cuts Virginia Key mangroves to make way for boat show
USA – Faced with yet another obstacle in the struggle to host a controversial boat show at Marine Stadium on Virginia Key, Miami city workers found a simple solution last month: chop it down. Only one problem. Cutting mangroves without a permit is illegal. A Miami-Dade County environmental regulator discovered the blunder in late May when he showed up to check out a pile of tree debris just west of the stadium. More than 300 feet of shoreline had been stripped of trees, including red and black mangroves which provide valuable protection from erosion and shelter for young fish and nesting birds. A city manager told him the work was being done to ready the site for the International Boat Show. For boat show critics, who have complained bitterly about running the international show so close to fragile marine life and seagrasses where manatees graze, the mistake underlines their worries about potential impacts on Biscayne Bay from the show, long held at the Miami Beach Convention Center. READ MORE
 
Cuba’s Environmental Concerns Grow With Prospect of U.S. Presence
CUBA – Like many of his countrymen, Jorge Angulo hopes the United States will lift the decades-old economic embargo against Cuba. But Dr. Angulo, a senior marine scientist at the University of Havana, is also worried about the effects that a flood of American tourists and American dollars might have on this country’s pristine coral reefs, mangrove forests, national parks and organic farms — environmental assets that are a source of pride here. “Like anywhere else, money talks,” Dr. Angulo said. “That might be dangerous, because if we go too much on that side, we lose what we have today.” As relations between the United States and Cuba have warmed — the countries announced on Wednesday that their embassies in Havana and Washington would reopen by July 20 for the first time in more than 50 years — and as the renewal of trade seems more of a possibility, the Cuban government faces pivotal choices. READ MORE
 
OCEANA
 
Climate change compounding threats to Australia's ecosystems, studies find

AUSTRALIA – Climate change is compounding existing threats to Australia’s forests, wetlands and deserts, with several key landscapes now at risk of total collapse, a landmark series of new studies have found. An assessment of 13 ecosystems across Australia, ranging from the wet tropics of far north Queensland to rare shrubland in Western Australia, found what researchers call a “worrying” climate change impact that adds to existing harm caused by urban development, agriculture and invasive species. The research is the first of its kind to assess Australian ecosystems based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s benchmark Red List criteria which has, until recently, focused on the status of individual animal and plant species rather than whole landscapes. Under the Red List criteria, eight of the studied Australian ecosystems would be classified as “endangered” or “critically endangered”, with just the Lake Eyre wetlands considered in the “least concern” category. READ MORE
 
Habitat loss is seen as the primary threat to at-risk species but recovery plans avoid addressing it
AUSTRALIA – Successive Australian governments have failed to protect the habitat of the country’s most endangered creatures, with 90% of the 120 most endangered animals having no safeguards to prevent the loss of their homes, a new study has found. An analysis by environmental groups of the official recovery plans for Australia’s endangered wildlife has discovered that just 12 of the 120 most endangered animals were covered by plans that placed limits on the future loss of their habitat. This is despite the fact that habitat loss due to developments such as housing and mining is considered to be the primary threat to nearly 70% of these at-risk species. The report, compiled by the Australian Conservation Foundation, BirdLife Australia and Environmental Justice Australia, states that recovery plans consistently avoid any measures to limit habitat loss and that successive governments have “entrenched the process of extinction”. READ MORE

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