MAP News Issue #600 – June 15, 2024

BANGLADESH – The heavy battering that the Sundarbans took while trying to fend off fierce winds and tidal surges that came along with Cyclone Remal is beginning to be clearer. The forest department estimates infrastructural damage worth over Tk 6 crore within the forest. But that may be the tip of the iceberg as the real damage—caused to its biodiversity—is impossible to quantify. The forest floor lies covered with uprooted trees and foliage, with animal carcasses being discovered every day. Experts say it might need 30-40 years to restore its natural balance. What, then, the Sundarbans requires is to be left alone to recuperate, not further assaults from the very people it protects. Yet, that may be precisely what’s in store for the forest, with an alarming rise of resort business surrounding it in recent years. As per a report by Prothom Alo, resorts are being built close to the Sundarbans, some extending into its rivers, despite environmental laws prohibiting construction or activities detrimental to the forest within 10 kilometres of it. So far, some 14 resorts have been built in Khulna and Satkhira by cutting down trees and filling up canals and low-lying areas, with eight more under construction. These resorts often operate generators and air conditioning systems, causing noise, water, light, and soil pollution, as well as disturbing and even driving away the wildlife.

GLOBAL – The Mangrove Action Project (MAP) established the Community-Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration (CBEMR) as a Yahoo e-group in 2005 to share information amongst mangrove restoration practitioners in the Bay of Bengal Region following the first CBEMR workshop MAP held in AP India.  In 2020 we moved to Groups io.    CBEMR puts the focus on hydrology and correcting it if it’s preventing natural regeneration from occurring and it means that planting seedlings often is not required with the results being a more natural biodiverse mangrove forests.  The e-group has proven to be an effective tool for knowledge and experience sharing on mangrove restoration so the group is open to all persons interested in CBEMR.  The group has more than 600 members including students, NGOs, academics, scientists and mangrove restoration practitioners from Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, Australia and Oceania.   The emphasis of the group is on sharing mangrove restoration information using the CBEMR methodology to improve the effectiveness of mangrove restoration projects but other information on mangrove conservation is also being exchanged. 

GLOBAL – his is the first global assessment of a full ecosystem functional group across the planet using the Red List of Ecosystems and raises concerns about the risk of collapse of mangrove ecosystems. Here is an overview of the results. Mangrove ecosystems are important for biodiversity conservation, provision of essential goods and services to local communities, and reducing the impact of climate change. For this reason, understanding risk of ecosystem collapse has serious socioeconomic implications. Threats menacing mangroves are evolving rapidly: in the past we saw degradation from wood exploitation, deforestation for agriculture and shrimp farming, and indirect imparts from dam construction altering freshwater and sediment fluxes. Today, mangroves face additional challenges due to climate change, including sea-level rise and an increased frequency and severity of cyclonic storms. Fifty percent of Mangrove Ecosystems units are at risk of collapse (in the IUCN threat categories of Vulnerable (VU), Endangered (EN), or Critically Endangered (CR); equally they represent 50% of the world’s mangrove area.  

Is Shrimp Good for You?
It’s Complicated.

USA – Americans aren’t particularly enthusiastic about seafood. We eat less than half of what a Japanese or Indonesian person does. Less than a third of the average Icelander. But there is one big exception: shrimp. Our appetite for the fat little crustacean has increased for decades, with the average American now eating almost six pounds per year, far more than any other ocean product. Just ask Red Lobster: The struggling seafood chain declared bankruptcy this month, citing, among other things, an all-you-can-eat shrimp scheme that cost the company $11 million when it underestimated how much people would eat. But how healthy is our favorite seafood? Is it good for our bodies? What about the world’s mangrove forests and sea turtle populations? And how do you know what to buy the next time you are at the seafood counter? Shrimp is a good source of protein, on par with, say, a rib-eye steak. It’s high in calcium and vitamin B12. It’s low in saturated fat, which makes it heart-healthy. And while shrimp is high in cholesterol, experts no longer worry as much about dietary cholesterol’s effect on health.

Rio de Janeiro bay reforestation shows mangroves’ power to mitigate

KENYA – Conservationists and environmentalists in Lamu County have been urged to embrace planting of less dominant species of mangroves in degraded sites to curb their extinction. Rare mangrove species at the brink of extinction include the Xylocarpus granatum locally known as Mkomafi and the Xylocarpus moluccensis locally known as Mkomafi dume.Dominant and common mangrove species in the coastal ecosystem include the Rhizophora mucronata locally known as Mkoko, the Bruguiera gymnorrhiza locally known as Muia, the Ceriops tagal locally known as Mkandaa and the Sonneratia alba, locally known as Mlilana.Other dominant mangrove species are the Avicennia marina locally known as Mchu, the Lumnitzera racemosa locally known as Kikandaa and the Heritiera littoralis locally known as Msindukazi. Conservation experts have expressed concern that despite Kenya being home to all the nine mangrove species described in the Western Indian Ocean-WIO region, restoration efforts seem to only concentrate on certain dominant species of the mangroves while ignoring the rest.

PANAMA – Mangrove forests are highly efficient at capturing and storing carbon from the air; in fact, they can hold three to five times as much carbon as the same area of terrestrial forest can. So, researchers in many countries are working to measure how much carbon is stored in mangrove forests. Two smiling women take a selfie on a beach. The woman on the right wears a beige shirt and blue bandana and has sunglasses perched on top of her head. She has her arm around the other woman, who is wearing a green shirt, a bandana around her neck, and a tan baseball hat. Behind them are palm trees and a coastline. Researchers from 14 international and local institutions came together in 2021 to measure, for the first time, total mangrove carbon stocks in the central American country of Belize; their findings were published last year. Now, researchers from that assessment are applying their knowledge elsewhere. Hannah Morrissette, Ph.D., a coastal wetland biogeochemist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and one of the field team members of the Belize assessment, is working with Tania Romero, M.S., an aquatic tropical ecologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and others to assess the mangrove carbon stocks in Panama. 

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Winners to be announced World Mangrove Day