Mangrove News Recap # 616 – Jan 25, 2025

USA – Despite a devastating die-off, this week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the petition to upgrade Florida manatees’ Endangered Species Act status from threatened to endangered. Over the past few years, more than 2,000 Florida manatees have starved to death as water pollution decimated their seagrass supply.

INDIA – In India, mangroves emerge as vital natural shields, demonstrating their unmatched power to protect vulnerable coastal communities. “A deeper understanding of these natural systems’ response to complex anthropogenic and natural pressures is crucial for better decision-making,” added Rupesh Bhomia, the CIFOR-ICRAF scientist responsible for establishing long-term mangrove monitoring sites nationwide.

NIGERIA – A women-led reforestation effort has planted millions of mangrove trees with a high survival rate across swamps in Nigeria’s oil-rich and severely degraded Niger Delta. For decades, the Ogoni people of the delta’s Ogoniland region have faced the impacts of numerous oil spills, logging, and the spread of invasive nipa palms that destroyed thousands of mangroves they rely on for their livelihoods.

INDIA – A recent study by ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Mumbai, and King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, has documented and categorized the types of microplastics found in the mangrove sediments of Mumbai, India. The study aims to understand the sources of the microplastics and identify ways to mitigate them.

PANAMA – Conservation groups in Panama are trying to halt the construction of a new port in the Pacific province of Chiriquí that they say could destroy breeding grounds and nurseries for marine species. The port is to be located deep in a series of channels and lagoons covered in mangroves that support rays, sharks and other emblematic species. They won’t survive construction or the increased maritime traffic, conservationists say.

VIET NAM – Authorities in the Mekong Delta are implementing various programs to grow mangrove forests to protect coastal areas and improve the incomes of local people. The delta, which comprises 12 provinces and Can Tho city, has the largest area under mangrove in Vietnam, but these forests have been impacted by climate change and human activities, and are shrinking in size.