Mangrove Meet-up: Sharing ideas, perspectives and experiences 
March 9th, 2017 was another sweltering day in southern Thailand. The air was almost wet with humidity, the sun beat down from overhead, and the relentless heat hung around like a blanket. However, the midday temperature did not stop the seven villagers from Ban Thung Yor, Klong Thom, Krabi Province who were exploring the mangrove restoration site at Ban Nai Nang. This was the second stop on a two-day tour of three villages affiliated with Mangrove Action Project (MAP) and funded through Synchronicity Earth of the UK. The tour was set up to highlight the experiences of MAPs participants and share ideas of how to successfully restore their own mangrove area. Villagers here have worked for years to reestablish their mangrove area, and have divided it into two sections- one left to restore naturally, and another with the addition of the planning of Nypa plants that the villagers use for thatch roofs, cigarette rollers, food, and daily life. Villagers of Ban Thung Yor were invited to learn to make batik fabric prints and were taken on a tour of the mangrove area, which has grown a considerable amount since the last time it was visited. “Our biggest problem was hydrology of the site,” spoke Mr. Ekakarat Cheangyang, “once we got the hydrology fixed, the area grew back quite quickly, and is still growing.”
READ MORE VIEW THE VIDEO AFRICA
Unesco upbeat in scaling up floating mangrove project
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) Doha Office will remain upbeat in its efforts to promote and scale up the floating mangrove project in Qatar. “We are trying to find more partners from the private sector for the project. We know the pilot went very well, but we need to scale it up,” Dr Anna Paolini, director, Unesco Representative in the Arab States of the Gulf and Yemen, said at a press briefing yesterday. Described as “a highly important environmental initiative” that will significantly sequestrate carbon emissions not only in Qatar but globally, she stressed that the idea was picked up by other Unesco offices in different parts of the world. She believes it is easier for their colleagues to present this idea to their partners due to larger mangrove populations in countries where they operate. READ MORE
ASIA
Sri Lanka project wins international funding competition
SRI LANKA – The Sri Lanka Mangrove Conservation Project has been named a winner of this year’s Global Resilience Challenge, enabling a major expansion of Seacology’s landmark nationwide project! The competition, hosted by the international Global Resilience Partnership, selected a number of organizations working to bolster communities against climate change and natural disasters in Africa and Asia. The nearly $1 million grant will let Seacology expand the initiative’s reach and deepen its impact in the country’s northern and eastern regions. As the scientific consensus builds about the importance of mangroves in sequestering carbon, protecting coastal communities from storms, and supporting fisheries, Sri Lanka will be in an even better position to demonstrate these important benefits. “This project makes Sri Lanka the first nation in the world to protect all of its mangrove forests. This is very important as mangroves sequester more carbon than other forests and thus play a vital role in the battle against global warming,” said Duane Silverstein, Seacology’s executive director. READ MORE
Kochi may get a mangrove heritage site
INDIA – With the destruction of mangrove forests continuing unabated both in private and public lands, the district office of the state biodiversity board has come forward to protect one such area by declaring it a heritage site. The district biodiversity officials have proposed 20 acres of mangrove forests in Puthuvype campus of Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (Kufos) as 'district mangrove heritage site'. A proposal regarding this has been submitted to the state biodiversity board. Currently, the mangrove forest patch in Kufos houses 14 species including Xylocarpus brought from Andaman Islands. Rhizophora and Mucronata, locally seen in Puthuvype, have also been conserved in the area. The Mangrove Research Centre is conserving the patch that is being used for study purposes. "We are planning to declare mangrove heritage sites in four or five districts in the state in two months. Biodiversity management committees in respective local bodies should pass a resolution giving permission to declare mangrove forest areas as heritage site. READ MORE
Ten Mumbai city spots to be rid of debris to save mangroves
INDIA – In a bid to save existing mangroves in the city, the mangrove cell has identified ten places that need to be cleaned of debris so that it does not kill mangroves in the area. Mangroves in Bandra have been rid of debris however the cell, along with residents’ associations, local schools and colleges is to begin similar activities in areas such as Versova and Charkop. The objective is not only beautification of mangroves but also removing plastic from these areas. With debris collecting in and around mangroves, the plants are scarcely able to breathe which often times kills them. The department started by cleaning the mangrove patch at Carter Road, Bandra, for which it roped in students from local schools and colleges and residents’ associations in the vicinity. Nearly 150 school students along with others collected 50 bags of trash stuck to the roots of the mangroves. A hundred saplings were also planted at the site. READ MORE
A man-made mangrove forest thrives in Iloilo
PHILIPPINES – A man-made mangrove forest in Leganes, Iloilo province, is now becoming a magnet for birds, a variety of spawning fish species, mud crabs and other marine wildlife. The 15-hectare Katunggan Park in Barangays Gua-an and Nabitasan, which used to be fishponds, is now thickly covered with mangroves. From being an abandoned, underutilized and unproductive fishpond, proponents of the project reverted the area into a mangrove forest for climate-change mitigation and adaptation—and later a tourist and learning destination. Located 11 kilometers north of the capital Iloilo City, Leganes is a fourth-class municipality that used to be one of the province’s top producers of milkfish. READ MORE
Good intentions alone won’t grow new mangroves
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SRI LANKA – Perhaps no single ecosystem is more emblematic of nature’s benefits to humans than mangrove forests. Lining tropical and subtropical coastlines worldwide, they’re nurseries for countless species and protect inland areas from hurricanes and storms. They’re an environmental feature beyond our wildest technical capacities. In just the last half-century, though, more than half of all mangrove forests were lost to development. In response, people have tried to plant new forests—but as detailed in a new Restoration Ecology paper on the failure of restoration efforts in Sri Lanka, planting mangroves involves much more than putting seedlings in the ground. “Restoration projects in Sri Lanka have generally not been successful in restoring mangroves despite the good intentions which fueled them,” write the researchers, who were led by botanist Sunanda Kodikara of Sri Lanka’s University of Ruhana and Nico Koedam, an ecologist at Vrije University Brussel. Kodikara and Koedam’s team surveyed 23 mangrove restoration sites, most of them planted by government agencies and NGOs following a catastrophic 2004 tsunami drew global attention to the importance of mangroves. The 23 sites altogether represented about 1,000 hectares of plantings; on nine of those sites, not a single plant had survived. On just 200 hectares, or 20 percent of targeted area, had new forest grown, and sometimes these were stunted and unhealthy. The reasons for this were many. READ MORE
AMERICAS
Collaboration rescues a mangrove ecosystem
MEXICO – The collaboration of academic and private interests has enabled the recovery of a mangrove ecosystem in Tamaulipas that just 15 years ago was thought to be completely lost. he Arroyo Garrapatas mangrove estuary, a 40-hectare coastal wetland located in the industrial port of Altamira, was severely damaged in the 1970s when state oil company Pemex built a pipeline in the area and effectively interrupted the natural flow of the tides. A precise mix of fresh and salt water is needed for a mangrove ecosystem to flourish. After the pipeline was installed, the Arroyo Garrapatas mangroves started to die off and disappear. In 2003, researchers from the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas and the Altamira port authority had been studying options to recover what was left of the mangroves when the answer literally fell into their laps. READ MORE
Grant funds study of Mangrove loss and conservation in South Asia
USA – A new NASA grant for nearly $820,000 will fund a three-year, Duke University-led study to monitor mangrove loss in South Asia and identify effective mitigation and protection strategies to help reverse the decline. South Asia’s mangrove forests provide numerous essential ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation, that benefit populations worldwide. They also help protect densely populated coastal regions in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan from storm surge and flooding. “These forests increasingly are under threat from both natural and human-derived forces, including pollution, development and sea-level rise,” says Jeffrey R. Vincent, interim dean and Clarence F. Korstian Professor of Forest Economics and Management at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, who is principal investigator of the new $819,540 grant. “Our new project, which integrates research on remote sensing, conservation biology and environmental economics, will help us better understand the rates, patterns and causes of changes occurring to mangrove cover since 1985, and the resulting impacts these changes have had on the vital ecosystem services mangroves provide,” Vincent says. READ MORE
Why the momentum for mangroves?
USA – Last week, the Global Resilience Partnership announced the winners of its Water Window Challenge, in which 12 projects will share $10 million to tackle flooding in vulnerable areas. One of those organizations was Seacology, a nonprofit environmental conservation organization dedicated to preserving the habitats and cultures of islands, which will use the nearly $1 million grant to expand its work to conserve mangroves in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. A partnership between Seacology, the Sri Lankan NGO Sudeesa, and the Sri Lankan government led this island nation to became the first country in the world to comprehensively protect all of its mangrove forests. “Mangroves are really the unsung heroes of conservation,” Duane Silverstein, the executive director of Seacology, told Devex from his office in Berkeley, California. He said that Sri Lanka could serve as a model for other countries, at a moment when scientific consensus is building about the importance of mangroves — and the international community is acting on that information. READ MORE
Artificial Mangroves Could Bring Back Vanishing Habitats In Florida
USA – A couple researchers created fake mangroves in Manasota Key to bring back marine life that was lost from development. Along Florida’s coasts are seawalls– built to prevent the shoreline from eroding. But that defense sometimes means removing natural habitats. Experts are now trying to turn these solid barriers into thriving ecosystems.
In Englewood, the blue-green waters of Lemon Bay lightly lap against the cement wall that shields local buildings and people from potential floods. What used to be here? Red mangroves— home to fish, crabs, and also oysters, which filter the water. "They're so attractive as an architectural kind of exhibit– the tree itself, the way it branches, the way the roots and branches overlap and you get a kind of continuous structural network," says architect Keith Van de Riet. READ MORE
