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Mangrove Action Project (MAP) is a US-based nonprofit which collaborates with stakeholders at all levels to preserve, conserve, and restore our world’s mangrove forests.
By working with forest communities, research academics, forest and environment departments, policy makers, and international policy and funding groups, we encourage the preservation and conservation of existing mangroves, educate on how to restore degraded or unhealthy mangrove ecosystems, and encourage multiple generations to take an active interest in their local forests. Why do we do this? Because healthy mangroves can provide coastal communities (particularly the poorest) with a sustainable living and reduce their vulnerability to disasters from natural events such as hurricanes and storm surges. Mangroves also provide a host of other benefits to the world at large – including sequestering and storing more carbon than any other forest type per hectare.
We at Mangrove Action Project take a truly grassroots, bottom-up approach to mangrove conservation and restoration issues. Our approach involves and includes the voices of the global South, local communities, and their partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
MAP works through action, advocacy, and education to ensure that mangrove forests are healthy for current generations – as well as those to come.
Mangrove forests are simultaneously one of the world’s most important ecosystems – and one of its most threatened.
From providing vital marine spawning grounds, to mitigating climate change (both through massive carbon sequestration potential, and in dealing with current effects like coastal erosion), maintaining biodiversity, and providing livelihoods to hundreds of millions around the world, mangroves are a vital resource for both local and global communities.
RESTORATION
using our innovative, successful, and sustainable Community-Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration (CBEMR) technique
EDUCATION
using our award-winning Marvellous Mangroves curriculum, ensuring conservation will continue with tomorrow’s generations
NETWORKING & ADVOCACY
utilizing our extensive network of NGOs, scientists, government, international agency, and community representatives, as well as mangrove communities, all working together to keep our mangrove forests healthy for the future
History of MAP
Witnessing firsthand the rapid devastation of the world’s mangrove forest wetlands and their associated coastal ecosystems, the founders of the Mangrove Action Project decided in 1992 that it was time to form a global network to save the mangroves.
From the beginning, we focused on problems affecting both coastal ecology and local communities. We became whistleblowers against the shrimp aquaculture industry, spotlighting its destructive expansion, responsible for hundreds of thousands of hectares of mangrove loss and ruin of valuable coastal zones.
In recent years, MAP has transformed from a network- and advocacy-focused organization into one still involved in advocacy, but with programs and activities on the ground.
We focus on viable, long-term, equitable solutions that place the local community at center stage. MAP supports the bottom-up approach in the search for more effective and lasting change.
CBEMR General ( copy)
Education ( copy)
MAP Locations ( copy)