FEATURE Last Call for voting on Mangrove Action Day Photographs
TITLE: Land Crab // Mr Martin Whiteley // Maldives
GLOBAL – There is still time to vote for your favorite photo! MAP's recent call for photographs for World Mangrove Day 2019 is raising awareness of the important connections people have with mangrove forests. In July 2019, we asked for and received 250 stunning photos from 30 countries around the world that highlighted mangrove ecosystems and their important contributions to communities and the environment. The theme for this year was #MangrovesMatter. We would like to thank each and every person who contributed to this project! Winners will be announced later this month and there is also a People’s Choice Award that is given out to the photo with the most votes. Enjoy the photos below and vote for your favourite!We had our most impressive photo contest with 250 submissions from 30 different countries around the tropics. Voting for the People's Choice Awards seem to be coming in thick and fast also. Be great to keep the energy up on this. VIEW PHOTOS AFRICA Forests and passion: a hero’s guide to resisting climate change
SEYCHELLES – For many people, retirement is a chance to take a break. Not so for Victorin Laboudallon, a grandfather from the Seychelles who spends his days planting forests to fight climate change. Wherever there’s a forest fire in the Seychelles, you can be sure you’ll find Laboudallon ready to fight back, armed with seeds and shovels. “Protecting nature makes me very happy in life,” says Laboudallon. “We need to protect it as much as we can, so other generations can enjoy it like I did when I was a kid.” Laboudallon, 65, has built a network of volunteers, from children to retirees, whom he calls upon to help him with replanting. Laboudallon is widely known across the Seychelles for his decades of environmental action and his big personality. While planting trees in the wet dirt, barefoot and laughing, he says his surname means “friend of the mud” in his local Creole language.“I’m not somebody who lives under the big concrete. I live under the beautiful trees,” he says, pointing above at the iconic coco-de-mer palm.The Seychelles is a nation of 115 islands—known for glistening beaches and stunning biodiversity—off the east coast of Africa. Here climate change is not a distant prospect, but a daily reality. READ MORE Help stop the advance of oil palm plantations in Gabon
GABON – OLAM is a large transnational agribusiness company based in Singapore that operates in over 70 countries. In 2010, OLAM partnered with the government of Gabon to develop large industrial oil palm and rubber plantations on a total of 500,000 hectares of land in the Central African country with extensive forest areas. To implement their plans, OLAM and the government of Gabon created several companies, including SOTRADER. Dozens of communities live on the land that the government gave to OLAM in concession; these communities depend on the forests and savannas for their livelihoods which are based on agriculture, hunting, gathering and fishing. Ever since OLAM began its operations, the company and its plantations have brought great destruction to the communities’ territory, and have started to enclose more and more. READ MORE AMERICAS The State of the World’s Mangrove Forests: Past, Present, and Future
USA – (Friess et al) Intertidal mangrove forests are a dynamic ecosystem experiencing rapid changes in extent and habitat quality over geological history, today and into the future. Climate and sea level have drastically altered mangrove distribution since their appearance in the geological record ∼75 million years ago (Mya), through to the Holocene. In contrast, contemporary mangrove dynamics are driven primarily by anthropogenic threats, including pollution, overextraction, and conversion to aquaculture and agriculture. Deforestation rates have declined in the past decade, but the future of mangroves is uncertain; new deforestation frontiers are opening, particularly in Southeast Asia and West Africa, despite international conservation policies and ambitious global targets for rehabilitation. In addition, geological and climatic processes such as sea-level rise that were important over geological history will continue to influence global mangrove distribution in the future. Recommendations are given to reframe mangrove conservation, with a view to improving the state of mangroves in the future. READ MORE Mangroves, Climate Change And Hurricanes
USA – Florida <was> preparing for the possibility of a major hurricane in coming days. And scientists are saying that mangroves might help lessen the impact of a storm surge. Mangroves are tropical trees with a tangled web of roots that grow along warm coastline. Mangroves are spreading, growing farther north and south as the earth gets warmer. But as it turns out, these trees may actually help slow the effects of climate change. Danny Lippi is a certified master arborist, one of a select few the state allows to trim mangroves. Recently, more mangroves have been arriving in northeast Florida and thriving. They're growing taller, blocking waterfront views and boosting demand for his services. The known northern-most limit of mangroves in the U.S. is about 70 miles north of here on Amelia Island. Researchers say the trees are moving forward globally, a phenomenon that's being driven by climate change – specifically, fewer and less intense freezes and more intense storms. As storms grow in intensity, they're able to carry the trees' seed-like propagules farther. And the last freeze strong enough to wipe mangroves out in northeast Florida was 30 years ago. Since then, researchers say mangrove forests have expanded by 1,700 acres here.READ MORE Researchers assessing impact of storms, roads on mangroves
USA – What do mangroves, hurricanes and roads have in common? They’re all part of Southwest Florida’s coastal environment. Mangroves and hurricanes are natural; roads are not. And hurricanes and roads can have major effects on mangroves. Working with Win Everham, professor of environmental studies, graduate student Gianna Diaz is finishing up a project to determine how hurricanes and roads affect the area’s mangrove forests. “I have lived in Clearwater my whole life and I’ve always seen mangroves while driving to the beach and boating but never understood why they created these islands,” said Diaz, who is working on her master’s in environmental studies. “Then I got to FGCU and started working with Win, who had started a project at Vester [Marine Field Station] looking at how Hurricane Irma affected a mangrove island there. Helping with that work got me interested in how a hurricane will affect a forest that has been hit over and over again by hurricanes throughout history. Then Win came up with the idea of multiple disturbances, and I knew that was my project.” READ MORE Hundreds of flamingos arrive to the mangroves of Sisal
MEXICO – A fantastic event took place in Sisal, and residents of this municipality went out to the mangroves to look at the hundreds of beautiful pink flamingos and take pictures. A resident of Sisal, Doña Esmeralda Acosta, managed to capture in photographs, the arrival of hundreds of flamingos to the mangrove area right next to her home. She posted the photos on her Facebook page, and the publication immediately went viral. There is concern that this important natural habitat could be invaded by humans, as it has happened in the mangrove area of Progreso, Yucalpetén and Chelem, where locals and visitors have polluted this fragile ecosystem, that is absolutely vital for the reproduction and survival of dozens of species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish. However, it is worth mentioning that reforestation actions have been implemened recently in the mangroves of Sisal. These so-called “reforestation beds” are intended to grow baby mangrove seedlings. READ MORE Mangroves allegedly removed, jetty built in Claxton Bay
TRINIDAD TOBAGO – Questions have been raised over the removal of mangrove trees in the Claxton Bay area along with the construction of a fishing jetty. Conservation group Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) said in a post to social media that reports were received of the allegedly illegal structure. The group said mangrove trees have been trimmed and wooden platforms assembled on-site to build the jetty. "Mangrove trees are being trimmed and built wooden platforms are being assembled on-site to form the Jetty. Residents claim that the activity has been taking place for the past one (1) week. It is believed that this construction is being carried out by the owners of pleasure boats in the area," the group said. READ MORE ASIA How Drones Will Be Used To Save Tigers And Mangroves In The Sundarbans
BANGLADESH – The Sundarbans, stretching from the coast of West Bengal to Bangladesh, is the world's largest mangrove forest and a UNESCO heritage site.
It also houses the Sundarban National Park, home to the Royal Bengal tiger. Now the government of Bangladesh has a plan to protect it. ou see, the Sundarbans and the reserve within are both under attack. Poachers are constantly attempting to get their hands on the tigers, and mangroves are constantly being cleared away, leading to further erosion and flooding in the area. The problem is, it's really hard to police the region, given how expansive it is. There's just not enough manpower to cover every access point. So now, the Bangladesh Forest Department has announced it has plans to monitor the region using drones. READ MORE Save Maldives Campaign : Conserving Kulhudhuffusi Kulhi
MALDIVES – The decision to build a domestic airport in Kulhudhuffushi wetland and mangroves and the subsequent reclamation of a significant part of the mangroves is one of the biggest environmental ecocides the Maldives has seen in recent times. The destruction of the mangrove ecosystem commenced in October 2017, during President Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s administration despite a public outcry against this. Kristen Brown, a documentary filmmaker based in Montreal, Canada is working on a film about coastal adaptation in the face of climate change called Master Plan. Master Plan will travel to locations around the world where there are major infrastructure developments being built to protect a coastal area from sea level rise and where the developments being built are destructive to the local environment and are negatively impacting local communities. Recently there have been people speaking out about the destruction of mangroves with the construction of the airport at Kulhudullfushi. The film aims to highlight some of the organizations in the Maldives that are working on campaigns to save the mangroves related to climate change adaptation. READ MORE Mangroves aid families in Kampot
CAMBODIA – Civil society organisations and the Kampot Fisheries Administration warned that around 3,500 fishing families in the province stand to lose a total of between $16 million to $220 million in income yearly if mangrove forests are not protected. The warning was made during the launch of 100,000 Mangroves Campaign in the province’s Toek Chhou district, organised by ActionAid Cambodia, Children and Women Development Centre in Cambodia, Samaky Organisation, and eight communities in collaboration with the provincial Fisheries Administration. The campaign is aimed at planting mangrove saplings in the province. READ MORE EUROPE World must invest $1.8 trillion in mangroves to hold back climate change
U.K. – Nations rich and poor must invest now to protect against the effects of climate change or pay an even heavier price later, a global commission warned. Spending $1.8 trillion across five key areas over the next decade would not only help buffer the worst impacts of global warming but could generate more than $7 trillion in net benefits, the report from the Global Commission on Adaptation argued. "We are the last generation that can change the course of climate change, and we are the first generation that then has to live with the consequences," former UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who chairs the commission, said at the report's launch in Beijing. "Delay and pay, or plan and prosper," he said, sharing a catchphrase from the commission, which is co-chaired by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva. READ MORE
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SIGN THE PETITION LAST CHANCE TO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE PHOTO Mangrove Action Day Photography Voting underway. CLICK HERE 69 million tons of carbon stored thanks to mangrove restoration, as demonstrated by the new Mangrove Restoration Map VIEW MAP HERE Keep loggers out of Selous Game Reserve!
Tanzania’s government is moving ahead with its plans for a hydroelectric dam in Selous Game Reserve. A huge swath of the UNESCO World Heritage site and habitat of iconic African wildlife would suffer irreparable damage. 1,500 km2 – an area the size of London – has just been opened to logging. Please help us protect Selous. SIGN PETITION Don't trash coral reefs for the cruise industry! – TAKE ACTION Sea turtles or condominiums?
Sand mining and construction work would wipe out a marine biodiversity hotspot and destroy the livelihoods of local people, who have not been consulted. Please SIGN! Save Penang! Reject the 3-Islands Reclamation!
The lack of public consultation and detailed information about the project is shocking in view of the size of proposed reclamation which is 4,500 acres or 7 square miles
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Restoring The Natural Mangrove Forest
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Community Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration in Rufiji Delta VIEW VIDEO Video: Mangroves for the Future – A look bacK. As the latest phase of Mangroves for the Future (MFF) draws to a close, this video highlights some of the project’s most successful initiatives – from local women supporting national park management in Viet Nam to an island in the Maldives that has become a model for waste management, and everything in between. View Here Making the case for Emergency Climate Change Action  
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