Chinese symposium promotes MAP strategy

Dear Friends,

Here are some group photos from the two meetings in Xiamen, China. The
larger group shot was from the symposium he;d Nov. 12-13, and the smaller
group shot was from the meeting of the Mangrove Specialist Group held
Nov. 14-15. 

During the symposium, one of the presenters dealt with the importance of
mangrove associates, including mangrove associates and epiphytes such as
orchids in ensuring a healthy, bio-diverse mangrove ecosystem. It had not
occurred to me just how vital these associates and epiphytes were in
producing a healthy mangrove wetland, including ensuring adequate
pollination of mangroves and overall plant health. The flowering plants
such as orchids attract the insects that are important for pollination of mangroves.

This fact further proves the case for not relying on plantations and
mitigation as a way to replace a functioning mangrove system in one place
with a planted or afforested one elsewhere, because it will take many
years to establish the full mangrove community including the associates
and epiphytes.

Further surprise is that in China over 2500 ha of planted, introduced
Sonerratia mangroves from Bangladesh have been established in China as a
way to lessen coastal erosion and protect against hurricane winds and
waves. However, this may not yet be an invasive species in China, as it
turns out that the Sonerratia is not getting pollinated because of lack
of available suitable pollinators in China. There are some plans to
introduce such pollinators so this species can reproduce, but this raises
the specter of yet another bio-invasive species there.

China seems ripe for such bio-invasions as they attempt to introduce
other species of plants to their coastal zones. Someone had earlier
introduced the marsh plant Spartina (which grows naturally in the US) to
China and because of lack of natural bio-containment, this species has
become rampant in growth, actually threatening the native mangroves
because of the thick growth of this invasive grass-like reed can choke out the
mangroves in the area. Vast beds of Spartina spread rapidly in the
shallow bay and estuary waters there. At present there is no program
established to counter this threat, but again talk of introducing natural
competitors such as insects to keep the Spartina in check are being
discussed there, which could be problematic in establishing yet a new
invasive pest to China’s wetlands.

During the MSG strategy session, I was able to get formal approval for
my
earlier introduced proposal for undertaking a global assessment of past
and present mangrove restoration in an attempt to establish a best
practices approach to mangrove restoration. This assessment will involve
MAP, Robin Lewis of Florida and Norm Duke of MangroveWatch of Australia
in the process.
MangroveWatch will undertake the actual groundwork of assessing the
success and failure of selected restoration sites. This is important
because too often mangrove restoration projects are not monitored and
evaluated, thus allowing bad practices to be repeated and promoted,
funded by unsuspecting funders such as the World Bank to the tune
of millions of dollars and thousands of wasted man hours in futile
plantings. Because this failure to monitor and evaluate leads to around
70% or more failure rates, we are losing opportunity to reverse the
ongoing negative trend in mangrove losses.

Therefore, undertaking this kind of widespread study of restoration
attempts in Asia, the Americas and Africa could well help positively
influence future mangrove restoration programs, and we can be assured
CBEMR approaches will get the positive attention they so long have
deserved.

This proposed assessment program is urgently needed as proven by current
so-called “restoration efforts” in the Philippines, whereby a very
expansive government program to afforest
sea grass beds with mangroves is now in progress, or should I say
“regress!!” Dr. Jurgenne Primavera, who is a board
member of both MSG and the ZSL is leading the effort in the Philippines
to oppose this destructive ecosystem conversion, but so far has not been
able to convince authorities there to change their short-sighted
approach. Hopefully, the proposed mangrove assessment will have
some chance to affect policy there.

For inclusion of recommendations to IUCN by the MSG, I will be working on
a couple of recommendations, which I will ask others on this list to help
refine. One will recommend against mitigation as a means to justify
further mangrove habitat loss, and the other the recommendation to keep
shrimp farms out of the inter-tidal zone, not just out of the mangroves,
but outside the whole inter-tidal area. These one page recommendations
will be reviewed by the MSG steering committee and may be included in
their final statement of recommendations to IUCN.

A next meeting in Florida next
June of MMM4 will involve many MSG members, so this will be yet another
opportunity to move our restoration and conservation efforts forward.

I saw Jim in Thailand and Cambodia, discussing MAP issues with him,
including the future of our MAP Asia office. I will be discussing some of
the ideas we talked about with the board at the next meeting on the 25th.
While traveling in Cambodia I visited a joint community-livelihoods
project at Tonle Sap, meeting for the first time members of the PMCR
group there whom MAP Asia has been working with over the last 10 years or
so.They are establishing a very promising community savings plan,
involving women’s groups in the process of making small loans for
small-scale community development projects, eliminating the middleman in
the process.

Ciao,
Alfredo