MAP News Issue 429, November 11, 2017

Hundreds of dead sea turtles found floating off El Salvador

EL SALVADOR – Environmental officials in El Salvador are trying to establish what caused the death of hundreds of sea turtles found floating in the sea. Many of the 400 marine turtles were decomposing when they were discovered off El Salvador's Pacific coast, the country’s environment ministry said. They were found floating around 13km (eight miles) offshore from Jiquilisco Bay, a biosphere reserve located approximately 110km from the capital of San Salvador. “We don't know what caused the sea turtles' death,” the ministry said, adding that laboratory tests would be carried out. “We collected samples from the dead turtles,” they said. “They will be analysed in a laboratory to determine what killed them.” A similar incident occurred in 2013, when hundreds of dead sea turtles were found dead off El Salvador's coast between September and October. Authorities at the time attributed the cause to Toxic algae eaten by the turtles. The WWF says that “many species of sea turtles, freshwater turtles, crocodiles, iguanas, snakes, caimans and alligators” can be found utilising the area’s mangrove ecosystems. READ MORE

AFRICA

Anger seethes on margins of historic clean-up in Nigeria's Delta

NIGERIA – Nearly a decade after two catastrophic oil spills in the Niger Delta, a comprehensive clean-up has finally been launched in the southern Nigerian region. Oil companies and activists hope it will be a blueprint for wider rehabilitation but other badly polluted communities are unhappy not to be included. Earlier this month, crews of young men equipped with high pressure hoses began to attack the crude oil that has blighted the creeks and mangrove swamps in the area where they live. The workers from Bodo in Rivers State are beginning a three-year project that claims to mark a new approach to cleaning up the delta, the vast polluted swampland that pumps the oil vital to Africa’s largest economy. Four hundred workers will clear dead foliage and spilled oil before planting new mangroves. The site where they are working is small but organizers hope the anti-pollution drive can be repeated elsewhere in the delta. Unlike clean-up operations run routinely by oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, this one is backed by local communities and teams of scientists who will take samples of water, mud and soil in each area to measure progress and determine the best cleaning method. READ MORE

Tanzania's Zanzibar in new drive to save mangrove forests

TANZANIA – Tanzania's semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar has embarked on a campaign against mangrove destruction along the isles' coastline. Sheha Mjaja Juma, Director General of the Zanzibar Environment Management Authority (ZEMA), told Xinhua in an interview on Wednesday that the campaign aimed at protecting and replanting mangrove forests. "Our aim is to save mangrove forests from extinction as the rate at which mangroves are being cut is worrying. In fact, the rate of replacement does not match with what we are losing," the official said, explaining that the dense root systems of mangrove forests trap sediments flowing down rivers and off the land. "It helps stabilize the coastline and prevents erosion from waves and storms. In areas where mangroves have been cleared, coastal damage from hurricanes and typhoons is much more severe," Juma said. Apart from protecting coral reefs and seagrass meadows from being smothered in sediment, mangrove forests also produce numerous good and services both to the marine environment and people, according to Juma. The strategies will include educating people on the need to protect the environment as well as reinforcing the fight against mangrove cutting along the coastline. READ MORE

ASIA

NOTE FROM THE E.D.> Here is yet another battle to save a primary mangrove forest area- this time in the Maldives. I ask that we take a stand on this and other current battle fronts to save the mangroves before they are destroyed. Restoration is an ultimate recourse after the damage has been done, but we must prevent that damage in the first place if we hope to reach our goals of a future with mangroves!
President Abdulla Yameen: Stop Destruction of Kulhudhuffushi Mangrove 

Kulhudhuffushi Mangrove is the largest black mangrove forest in the Maldives. It hosts 8 species of true mangrove plants, 42 associated plant species and supports the entire ecosystem of the island.  Maldives is extremely vulnerable to climate change. We receive millions of dollars each year for climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. Just this year we received USD 23 million from the Green Climate Fund. It is hypocritical to actively destroy our most critical ecosystems while taking this money. As the chair of Alliance Of Small Island States (AOSIS) and our obligations under international environmental conventions, we must show leadership in taking action against climate change. The Environmental Impact Assessment done for the project itself states that “the positive impacts might not outweigh the negative impacts associated with the project”. We ask you to therefore reconsider the development of the airport by reclaiming the mangrove of Kulhudhuffushi and causing irreversible damage to island ecosystem. READ MORE

2,500 trees to be cut down for Kulhudhuffushi airport

MALDIVES -The Kulhudhuffushi council expects about 2,500 trees and plants to be felled or removed from the island’s mangrove forest for the construction of an airport. With dredging and land reclamation expected to begin in early November, the wetland area in the island’s northern end is now under the authority of the Regional Airports department of the tourism ministry, the island council president Abdul Latheef Hassan told the Maldives Independent. “It is up to Regional Airports to decide when to cut down trees in the kulhi,” he said by phone Monday morning. “We shared the land use plan of Kulhudhuffushi that includes the airport with the people before the end of July. We’ve also counted and marked the coconut palm trees two months ago after a request from the housing ministry and opened for complaints regarding the procedure.” Latheef added that the council has also contacted families who would have to move from the airport construction site. “We’ve also identified people that need compensation after relocation from the area and asked them to get in touch with the council if they have any issues.” The opposition-dominated council came under fire last week after announcing that the public was free to cut down or remove plants, including ironwood, tall silted mangrove, and sea lettuce. READ MORE

Seaside villagers set example in mangrove conservation

INDIA – In the times of massive deforestation and large scale conversion of forest land for industrial and housing purposes, the inhabitants of a seaside village in Jamboo panchayat of this district have set an example of sorts in conservation of mangroves, a report said. Kandarapatia in Mahakalapara block has a fragile ecosystem. However, its 500-odd residents have been protecting the mangroves surrounding the village over the last 18 years and to a large extent have been successful in preventing felling of trees by the timber mafia. Mangroves act as protective shields during cyclones and play a major role in maintaining the ecological balance. Besides, mangroves are the earth’s natural filtering system, capable of absorbing pollutants and carbon dioxide, thereby lessening the impact of global warming. Samal Majumdar, the village head, says, “Some people from Digha, Contai and Midnapore of West Bengal settled in the forest land here in the 1960s. Like others, they also destroyed the fragile ecosystem by cutting mangroves for their day-to-day use. But everything changed after a team of the MS Swaminathan Foundation visited the village in 1997 and educated the locals about the significant role of mangrove vegetation in coastal pockets.” “It was the mangrove forest that acted as a bio-shield during the 1999 Super Cyclone and saved our village from nature’s fury,” says Satyaranjan Bera, member of a forest protection committee. READ MORE

Satellite Imagery to be Used to Track India's Mangrove Forests

INDIA – he state mangrove cell has approved a proposal from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology in Valiamala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, and commissioned the research project to them to track the health of mangrove forests using real-time satellite remote sensing data. Satellite images will be relayed to the forest department on a monthly basis in the form of reports to check area-wise increase, destruction cases and areas where restoration can be done. Maps indicating the health of mangrove forests will be developed, which will include mangrove density, fragmentation, diversity, vegetation indices, erosion or accretion status, drainage density, sedimentation and blockages along river or estuary courses. This is the first time any state in India has allocated its resources to survey mangrove cover along its coastline, said mangrove cell officials. The proposal was received earlier this year and after several meetings to discuss the requirements from either side, it was cleared and the research project was awarded to the organization. READ MORE

AMERICAS

Map’s Exec Dir to speak – Nov. 16 in Port Angeles

USA – “Global Perspective on the Value of Mangroves and their Importance in Combatting Climate Change”, presented by Alfredo Quarto, the executive director of Mangrove Action Project (MAP). The talk, part of Peninsula College’s “Studium Generale”, will takle place at Little Theater on Thursday, November 16, 2017 – 12:30pm. The theatre is located at 1502 E Lauridsen Blvd, Port Angeles, WA. While the event is college sponsored for students, the public is invited and the event is free. For more than 25 years, MAP has worked to conserve and restore mangroves, while promoting the rights of local communities to more effectively participate in the process. READ MORE

Seaweed could be scrubbing way more carbon from the atmosphere than we expected

USA – If you’ve even eaten sushi, you know that seaweed goes great with rice and fish. But recent research suggests that seaweed is more than just a culinary partner — it could be an overlooked ally in the fight against climate change. By dying and drifting down to the deep sea, seaweeds like kelp may sequester more carbon than all other marine plants combined That’s a big deal, because saltwater plants like mangroves and seagrasses are well-known dynamos when it comes to storing carbon. Per acre, these “blue carbon” ecosystems can take up 20 times more CO2 from the atmosphere than land-based forests. The secret to their carbon-storing success lies not in the plants, but in the rich muck they grow in. As marine plants grow and die, their leaves, roots, stems and branches wind up buried in underwater sediments. These low-oxygen sediments can store carbon for decades or longer. Seaweeds, on the other hand, were long ignored as a carbon sink. But a study published in Nature Geoscience found that our assumptions about seaweed could be wrong. The study estimated that about 11 percent of total seaweed production may be sequestered, most of it after it sinks down into the deep sea. READ MORE

Could bombing Louisiana's coast with seeds save it?

USA – A crop duster airplane took aim at Sarah Mack's little boat bobbing on the edge of a salt marsh. Swooping low, it began dropping thousands of little green pods. "Watch out," said Mack, ducking under the boat's roof. "They leave some good welts." The pods plopped in the marsh and splashed along the shore. A few pinged off the boat's bow as the plane pulled up for another run. Tierra Resources, a wetland restoration company, is trying a new tactic in the fight against coastal land loss – carpet bombing marshes with mangrove seedlings. Mack, Tierra's founder, led crews that spent last week gathering a half-million of the lima bean-sized seedlings, known as propagules, and then spilled them across marshes near Port Fourchon, a hub of oil shipping in the northern Gulf of Mexico. READ MORE

EUROPE

Indigenous forests could be a key to averting climate catastrophe

GERMANY – The UN Climate Change Conference (COP 23), which opened Nov. 6 in Bonn, Germany occurs at a crisis point: most climate scientists now agree that the carbon cuts agreed to in Paris in 2015 are insufficient for keeping global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, with potentially catastrophic implications for civilization. More bad news: the world’s tropical forests which helped store human carbon emissions until the start of the 21st century, may no longer be carbon sinks. Researchers at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts recently determined that tropical forests could have experienced a net loss of around 425 million tons of carbon between 2003 and 2014, largely the result of deforestation and forest degradation. READ MORE

Climate finance failing on forest protection

UK – Climate finance, while efficient in sectors such as renewable energy, is not effective in protecting increasingly threatened forests or the rights of their inhabitants, a new report shows. “It’s just so much easier to put money into wind farms,” Charlotte Streck, director of the advisory company Climate Focus, says during the launch of the report (24 October) in London attended by a delegation of indigenous leaders from Brazil, Indonesia and other developing countries. “You have energy projects worth hundreds of million dollars that are easy to invest in, easy to assess and whose results are measurable.” To emphasise the neglect, the report compared the finance flowing towards forest protection and subsidies supporting intensive agriculture and land development. Findings show that the US$20 billion invested in stopping deforestation is dwarfed by the almost US$780 billion spent since 2010 in what the authors call ‘grey finance’—which has an unclear but potentially negative impact on forests. READ MORE

 

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