Women to Power Sri Lanka’s Mangrove Conservation Plan

Jakarta Globe, Amantha Perera, Jun 08, 2015

A worker carries a sack of plastic bottles collected from the beach for a
 recycling project during World Environment Day in Colombo, Sri Lanka
on June 5, 2015. (Reuters Photo/Dinuka Liyanawatte)

Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s new mangrove protection scheme, the world’s first country-wide initiative, is relying on women like Michel Priyadarshani, head of a fisherwomen’s group in eastern Ambantotam village.

Priyadarshani and her colleagues did not understand the importance of mangroves for the ecosystem, including the fish population, until they benefited from a program offering microcredit in return for looking after the coastal forests.

“Now we know — and from us, our husbands and our community also have become aware,” Priyadarshani said.

Since 1997, Sudeesa, a national organization that works to protect coastal ecosystems, has given women living near mangrove forests financial assistance — mainly loans of $50 to $2,000 each — incentivizing them to care for the delicate trees.

Now the program is about to go island-wide. Sudeesa, together with the Sri Lankan government and US-based environmental conservation group Seacology, recently launched a five-year, $3.4 million mangrove preservation initiative.

Sri Lanka is the first nation to promise to protect all its mangroves, experts said.

Mangrove trees grow in saltwater, forming a vital part of the natural cycle in coastal lagoons. Fish and other marine creatures like prawns use the deep roots as breeding areas.

The forests protect coastal communities from abrupt tidal shifts and storms, while slowing shore erosion.

“People who live near mangroves tell us the trees act as a buffer against the wind and heavy rains, breaking their intensity just before they make landfall,” said Douglas Thisera, director for coastal conservation at Sudeesa, formerly known as the Small Fishers Federation of Lanka.

Mangrove swamps also store carbon, sequestering it in the top few meters of underwater soil and keeping it there longer than other trees.

Micro-loans

K D Wijitha, who runs a group bringing together women from 23 villages in the northwestern Kalapitiya area, said they had learned to look after the mangrove forests.

“We make sure that they are safe,” she said.

Thanks to the Sudeesa program, Kristina Jospin from Samadigama village in northwestern Puttalam District received training and financial aid to operate a small bakery, which allows her to support her sick husband and four children.

Sudeesa credit officer Suvinetha de Silva said the program usually targets the poorest women, who are unable to seek credit from banks.

The new national scheme aims to set up 1,500 community groups around Sri Lanka’s 48 lagoons, which will offer alternative job training and micro-loans to 15,000 people. The groups will be responsible for the upkeep of designated mangrove forests.

Pilot projects showed a high success rate, said Duane Silverstein, executive director of Seacology. Almost 2,000 loans were made to women, with a repayment rate of over 96 percent.

“With very small loans of around $100, several of the women were so successful that they already employed additional women,” he said.

Half of loan recipients under the new program will be widows, while the rest will be male and female school dropouts.

Seacology and Sudeesa officials said each community group will be responsible for around 8.5 hectares of mangrove forest. The government has agreed to provide rangers to patrol the forests.

The program also plans to replant 3,885 hectares of mangroves.

The new government of President Maithripala Sirisena has brought the island’s 8,815 hectares of mangroves under the Forest Ordinance Act, making it illegal for anyone to exploit them for commercial purposes.

“It is an extremely vital decision because now all mangroves around the island can be protected with the active participation of the Forestry Department,” said Sudeesa chairman Anuradha Wickramasinghe.

Prawn damage

Some three decades ago, Sri Lanka had at least 98,842 acres of mangroves, Thisera said. But the bulk has been destroyed due to commercial exploitation and firewood use.

“The biggest threats to mangroves in Sri Lanka include prawn farms, which have been greatly curtailed in recent years, collateral damage from the civil war, and impoverished people cutting down mangroves to use or sell as charcoal,” Seacology’s Silverstein said.

The worst damage occurred in the northwest of the island nation, where commercial prawn farms took off in the 1990s. But most of these farms have been abandoned in the last few years due to the spread of disease.

The new mangrove protection scheme plans to introduce other trees that can provide an alternative fuel source, such as coconut husks.

Silverstein said the government’s enthusiasm for protecting the mangrove forests could push other countries in the region to follow suit.

Defense Secretary B.M.U.D. Basnayake told Silverstein the national armed forces could help with replanting efforts.

Sudeesa’s Wickramasinghe said the program’s success would depend on how far local communities buy into it.

“We have to make them understand the mangroves are a boost to their lives and their incomes,” he added.

Thomson Reuters Foundation

Shell agrees €70m compensation deal for Nigerian village hit by oil spills

DutchNews.nl, January 7, 2015

Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell has agreed to a $84m (€70m) out of court settlement with a village in the Niger Delta as compensation for oil spills in 2008 and 2009.

Lawyers for 15,600 Nigerian fishermen whose livelihoods were ruined by the spills say their clients will receive $3,300 each.

The remaining $30m will go to the community. Thousands of hectares of mangrove swamp were polluted by the spills, ruining drink water supplies and forcing the fishermen to find other jobs.

‘From the outset, we’ve accepted responsibility for the two deeply regrettable operational spills in Bodo,’ Mutiu Sunmonu, managing director of the company’s Nigerian subsidiary SPDC said in a statement. 

Shell says that both spills were caused by operational failure of the pipelines. 

More on this

An oil spill on the shores of the Niger Delta swamps. Shell has

said the recent oil spill is likely to be worst in a decade.

Photograph: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images

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Karachi's defensive mangrove barrier faces triple threat

Yahoo – AFP, Ashraf Khan, 5 Jan 2015

A boat laden with chopped mangroves passes along an inlet close to

the Arabian Sea in Karachi (AFP Photo/Asif Hassan)

Thick mangroves have long protected Karachi, southern Pakistan's sprawling metropolis, from battering by the Arabian Sea, but pollution, badly managed irrigation and years of illegal logging have left this natural barrier in a parlous state.

Experts fear that loss of the natural barrier formed by the mangroves could put the city of nearly 20 million people at greater risk from violent storms and even tsunamis.

Talib Kacchi looks at a destroyed

 mangrove swamp along a beach on the

 Arabian Sea in Karachi (AFP Photo/

Asif Hassan)

Close to Karachi, the mighty Indus river ends its long journey from the Himalayas in the sea.

The river delta is home to the shimmering green mangrove, a delicate ecosystem that thrives in the mingled salt and fresh water.

Fisherman Talib Kacchi, 50, recalled taking shelter from monsoon storms in the mangroves as a young man.

"When there were storms, we would have tied as many as four boats together with the mangroves, and then we would sit, gossip and sing songs," he said.

But the mangrove is a shadow of its former self -- from 600,000 hectares in the early 20th century now barely 130,000 hectares remain, according to marine biologist Mohammad Moazzam Khan.

The rest has fallen victim to illegal loggers, pollution from nearby industry and changes to the river flow caused by irrigation upstream on the agricultural plains of Sindh and Punjab provinces.

The fishermen, who make a livelihood from the fish and shellfish that shelter in the mangroves, have warned about their decline for years.

But a short boat ride from Karachi's Ibrahim Haidri fish harbour finds plenty of locals cutting the mangrove and carrying it away.

A boat laden with chopped mangroves passes along an inlet close

to the Arabian Sea in Karachi (AFP Photo/Asif Hassan)

Some use foliage as fodder for cattle while others scrape a living by selling branches for fuel.

"I sell one bundle for 10 to 20 rupees (10 to 20 cents)," Haji Ibrahim, a frail old man who had just anchored his small boat at the shallow waters of the harbour told AFP.

Cutting the mangroves is illegal but the maximum punishment for cutting the mangroves is a 36,000 rupee ($360) fine, doubled for habitual offenders, and in any case, prosecutions are extremely rare.

Pollution

Karachi is Pakistan's biggest city and economic and industrial heart. The rapid growth of factories has contributed to pollution in the Indus delta.

Near a power plant to the east of the city, the mangroves are dry and withered, robbing fish of their spawning grounds and angering Kamal Shah of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum.

"I really cannot understand why you would attack the mangrove. It's stupid -- it's like emptying your neighbour's stomach to fill your own," Shah said.

"If we were in another country, the mangrove would be valued and protected."

A crow sits on a chopped mangrove in

 a mangrove swamp on a beach on the 

Arabian Sea in Karachi (AFP Photo/

Asif Hassan)

As well as dissipating the energy of tropical storms when they hit the coast, the mangrove also provides a line of defence in case of tsunamis.

The Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet at the Makran Trench, off the coast, and the boundary has the potential to create major earthquakes.

An undersea quake in 1945 generated a tsunami that hit Karachi, killing 4,000 people, and a recent UN simulation suggested the city could be wiped out if a big tremor hit again.

"It is a very important ecosystem... it is the first line of defence against cyclones, strong surges, tsunami and other natural calamities," said marine biologist Khan, who works for the WWF wildlife NGO.

But there is some hope. A drive to replant the mangroves in recent years has seen them slowly regain some of the losses.

"It (plantation) is going very well. There are very few areas in the world where the mangroves cover is increasing and Pakistan is one of them," Khan said.

Related Article:

Cultivating oysters to combat coastal erosion in Bangladesh

Help sought for mangroves, nature's dams

Deutsche Welle, 26 December 2013

Mangroves provide the tropics with protection from the increasing incidence of storms and flooding caused by taiphoons and tsunamis. But the coastal forests are in decline. Efforts are underway to bring them back.

A green forest, rising out of the ocean, hugging the coastline like a green lifebelt - mangroves live only in tropical areas. They need warm conditions and a mixture of salt and fresh water. Their branches and web of aerial roots are home to numerous bird species. The waters around their base are alive with fish, the sediment crawling with crabs.

But since the 1980s, mangroves have declined by around 35 percent for various reasons. They often have to make way for harbors, airports or housing. Even more of the mangroves have been sacrificed for shrimp ponds that feed international demand for the small crustaceans, Ulrich Saint-Paul of the University of Bremen's Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology, told DW.

Mangroves provide rich pickings
for fishermen

By destroying mangroves, tropical countries are paying a high price to consumers in other parts of the world who want cheap shrimp.

"[Mangroves] are not only important breeding areas for crabs and fish. They also protect the coast. They act as barriers against storms. And they play a major role in regulating the world's climate as a CO2 sink," explained Saint-Paul. Long-term objectives such as coastal protection, maintaining ecosystems or protecting the climate are being sacrificed for short-term profits, he added.

Building dams and diverting of rivers also poses a threat to mangroves.

"They need fresh water as well as salty," Rene Capote, who monitored mangroves in his native Cuba while working with the University of Bonn told DW. "Even if you are far inland and you divert or block a freshwater source, the water will stop reaching mangroves and kill them."

Mangroves also filter much of the sediment coming from the land side, keeping the sea water clean in many areas. "That is very important for tourism in beach areas, and for the health of related ecosystems like coral reefs," both important economic factors, said Capote.

Natural wave-breakers

In the case of extreme weather events, mangroves act as protective barriers in several different ways: by absorbing large amounts of water, reducing flooding after heavy rain and by breaking the power of wind and waves.

Mangrove roots absorb water
and filter sediment

The aerial roots and numerous branches of the mangroves obstruct the flow of the water, explained Femke Tonneijck, a manager at Mangrove Capital, a partnership between Wetlands International, the Nature Conservancy and several other organizations in Indonesia.

During Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in November, mangroves could have reduced the impact of the storm surge.

A study by Wetlands International shows that every kilometer of mangroves can reduce the height of the water by up to half a meter. Even the smallest abatement can save lives. Tonneijck stressed that the trees also provide firewood and building material in the aftermath of an extreme weather event.

"But to really reduce a whole storm surge, you would need very wide greenbelts," she cautioned. For that reason, she advocates a combination of natural and man-made measures in threatened tropical areas where the mangroves have disappeared. "For example you could have a dike with a mangrove belt in front of it to protect the dike."

"Building with nature" in Indonesia

Traditional measures

Replanting the tidal forests can also help reclaim land that has eroded away. Tonneijck's group is working in an area of central Java where mangroves were replaced by aquaculture ponds for shrimp and fish, contributing to the erosion of hundreds of meters of coastline.

Restoration often fails in areas that suffer from erosion because the sediment balance is disturbed. Sediment can be trapped through "building with nature," using engineering techniques in combination with natural processes, says Tonneijck.

The project in Indonesia uses permeable dams made of local materials like bamboo and brushwood in front of the coastline. These structures mimic the function of mangrove roots and branches, as they dissipate waves and trap sediment. Once the sediment is stable, mangroves will naturally recolonize and form a new protective barrier. This method has been applied with salt marshes along the coasts of the Netherlands and Germany for centuries.

Bremen's Ulrich Saint-Paul says organizations like the World Bank are investing considerable amounts of money in projects to restore mangroves. "But in my view they always make one mistake: They plant the mangroves in monocultures, just like pine or fir plantations in Europe. This fails to take account of natural biodiversity, which lends a forest a far higher degree of ecological stability." 

Replanting mangroves helps if
conditions are right

Capote stressed the need for careful long-term planning and continual monitoring. "More frequently than not, after a few years all the planting effort has been lost, because the survival rate of the mangroves is low due to a lack of proper initial assessment and follow-up," he added.

Sustainable shrimp culture

Capote argues for a sustainable approach to existing mangroves as well as restoration projects. "You can have sustainable aquaculture in the sense that only a portion of the mangrove area is used and restored afterward, on a rotational basis."

Reducing pollution from shrimp feed is another important factor. "There is a limit to how many shrimps can be nursed in a mangrove area," Capote said. "You can either have very high short-term profits that end when all the mangrove area has been killed. Or you can have a longer-term approach, with lower profits, when mangroves are given time to recover naturally."

Awareness of the value of mangroves rises after every catastrophic extreme weather event in tropical areas. But it doesn't last long, says Ulrich Saint-Paul.

"We need a long-term education program, especially in schools and adult education, to make it clear to people in mangrove regions how important the forests are and why we need to protect them."

Philippines to plant more mangroves in wake of Typhoon Haiyan

Google – AFP, 26 November 2013

Mangrove trees are seen at Ulugan Bay shores in Puerto Princesa, Palawan

island, south of Manila, on April 25, 2012 (AFP, Ted Aljibe)

Manila — The Philippines said Sunday it will plant more mangrove areas to prevent a repeat of the deadly storm surges that claimed hundreds of lives during Super Typhoon Haiyan earlier this month.

President Benigno Aquino's spokesman Herminio Coloma said the move was among the measures that will be part of the "comprehensive programme of environmental protection", that is being forged in the wake of the killer typhoon.

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje is readying the programme which will include "no-build zones" in coastal areas, even if it means moving people who already live in such places, said Coloma.

A boy walks past Mangrove trees at
 Honda Bay in Puerto Princesa,
 Palawan island, south of Manila, on
April 24, 2012 (AFP, Ted Aljibe)

"Among the directives of the president is to restore the mangroves which are natural protection of coastal areas," he told reporters.

"We have already prepared mangrove plantations and we hope to begin planting soon because it takes five to seven years for these things to grow," he added.

Mangroves refers to trees and bushes that grow in marine coastal areas like marshlands with the plants standing out of the water during high tide.

Super Typhoon Haiyan left almost 7,000 people dead or missing when it swept through the central Philippine islands earlier this month, many of them killed by storm surges that hit coastal areas sending five-metre (16-feet)high, tsunami-like waves deep inland, destroying buildings.

Coloma said "geohazard mapping" by the environment department would identify which areas are vulnerable to natural disasters like storms and floods.

The Philippine government has been encouraging the protection of mangrove areas not only for protection against storm surges and waves but also because they prevent erosion of coastlines, act as nurseries for marine life and even serve as carbon sinks against global warming.

However the environment department has said many mangrove areas have already been lost due to conversion to other purposes like commercial fishponds and cutting of the plants for firewood and timber.

Tsunami-Blocking Mangroves Lure Carbon Investors

Jakarta Globe, Neil Chatterjee, Bloomberg, November 20, 2013

Fishermen clean their boats in Banda Aceh. A study in the wake of the 2004
 tsunami off Aceh, which killed 220,000 people living near the Indian Ocean,
showed that 30 coastal trees per 100 square metres may reduce the flow of a
tsunami by 90 percent, according to a 2005 report in the journal Science. (AFP Photo)

Replanted mangrove trees in Southeast Asia are getting credit for protecting against deadly tsunamis and typhoons such as Haiyan in the Philippines and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Mangrove regeneration in Northern Samar, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the worst-hit Philippine city of Tacloban, helped minimize damage from the Nov. 8 storm, according to the Trowel Development Foundation, which oversaw the plantings. On Indonesia’s Sumatra island, where a 2004 tsunami killed 170,000 residents, companies including Danone and Credit Agricole SA (ACA) have put up about $4 million in exchange for tradable carbon offsets tied to the reforestation.

Mangroves have twisted webs of roots above ground that absorb carbon dioxide linked to climate change and help protect coasts from tidal surges such as the one that killed at least 3,900 people when Typhoon Haiyan swamped the Philippines this month. The storm, one of the strongest to make landfall, has gripped UN climate talks in Warsaw this week, with a Philippine delegate tearfully calling for action to slow climate change.

“Had we not protected the mangrove trees against illegal cutting and had we not planted the areas surrounding the fish farms with native mangrove species, the super typhoon would have destroyed everything that the poor fisherfolks established,” Leonardo Rosario, a development consultant on the Northern Samar project, said by e-mail on Nov. 19.

The devastation in Tacloban was aggravated because it is near open seas with no mangroves to provide a buffer, he said. “So the super typhoon hit the land with its strongest might and high speed because there is no mangrove forest that should have slowed it down,” he said. “I hope the government would now realize the import of mangrove forests in protecting people, structures and livelihoods in the coastal areas.”

‘Very much degraded’

Mangroves in the Philippines have been lost at a rate of about 1 percent a year, with conditions “very much degraded,” Daniel Murdiyarso, a forestry scientist at the Bogor, Indonesia-based Center for International Forestry Research, said Nov. 18.

Mangroves, found on marine coasts and estuaries, may help low-lying coasts adapt to rising sea levels by increasing sedimentation, he said. The trees, adapted to changing water levels with roots several feet above ground, can help reduce the height and power of waves generated by storms, according to a Cambridge University report published in 2012 by The Nature Conservancy and Wetlands International.

2004 tsunami

A study in the wake of the 2004 tsunami of Aceh, Indonesia, which killed 220,000 people living near the Indian Ocean, cited models showing that 30 coastal trees per 100 square meters may reduce the flow of a tsunami by 90 percent, according to a 2005 report in the journal Science. While field-based evidence was limited, replanting coastal mangroves should buffer communities from future tsunamis, it said.

“I have been in far too many disaster areas as a member of the UNESCO International Tsunami Survey Team and seen too many coastal forests overwhelmed to put much faith in trees being effective defenses against a tsunami,” said Brian McAdoo, professor of science at Yale-NUS College in Singapore.

The Aceh project by the Medan-based conservation group Yagasu involves restoring 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres) on the northern coast of Sumatra. The program will help develop a methodology for a program letting Indonesian companies buy credits to voluntarily offset their greenhouse gas emissions, said Bambang Suprayogi, Yagasu’s founder, in a Nov. 18 interview.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who leaves office next year, pledged in 2009 to reduce Indonesia’s emissions by 26 percent at the end of the decade. Deforestation is the main cause of emissions from Indonesia, named by the World Bank as the third-largest emitter on earth in a 2007 report.

Warsaw talks

Indonesia and the Philippines are among about 200 nations meeting in Warsaw this week for climate talks. Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, doesn’t have an obligation under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which envisioned that developing countries would host emission-reduction projects to generate offsets against pollution limits in richer nations.

The US never signed the treaty, while Japan, Russia, Canada and New Zealand have opted against extending their commitments to Kyoto. The UN has yet spell out how credits from reforestation can be recognized.

Yagasu hopes to save 9 million tons of carbon dioxide over the Aceh project’s 20-year timeframe, Suprayogi said. While it has applied for UN validation, he expects most of the credits to be sold under a voluntary emission program to avoid the length and uncertainty of the UN approval process.

Voluntary credits

While Indonesia has 141 UN-approved projects designed to cut 249 million metric tons of emissions, the nation is designing its own program and methodology, Agus Purnomo, a presidential adviser for climate change, said in Jakarta on Nov. 14. The domestic plan would rely on companies voluntarily buying offsets, he said.

“Most investors in the Yagasu project are corporate and will use those credits to offset part of their own CO2 emissions,” said Charlotte Pasternak, head of external communications for Danone (BN) in Paris.

Indonesia’s rate of deforestation is about half the level of a decade ago because of a government moratorium on logging in natural forests, Purnomo said. Government figures put annual deforestation at about 450,000 hectares (4,500 square kilometers) for 2011/2012, he said.

A report in the journal Science this month, based on high resolution global maps of forest cover change, said Indonesia’s deforestation has accelerated and put the level at more than 20,000 kilometers a year in 2011/2012, most than four times the government’s figure.

Losing the forest

“Of all countries globally, Indonesia exhibited the largest increase in forest loss,” the report said.

Total emissions from Indonesia may reach 2.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2020 under business as usual projections, Purnomo said. That compares with an environment ministry estimate of 1.79 billion tons in 2005, with 63 percent of that from land use change, forestry and peat fires. The World Bank put the 2005 figure at 3 billion.

Greenpeace, the global environmental group, targeted Indonesian paper company APP and palm oil producer PT Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology, and buyers of their products such as Mattel Inc and Nestle SA, for clearing forests that are home to orangutans. APP said in February it would end natural forest clearance. PT Sinar Mas has said a 2010 audit showed the Greenpeace allegations were largely unfounded.

“Most of our coastal areas used to be mangroves, and many of them are no more,” said Purnomo. Coastal forests were destroyed for pools to grow shrimp and for agriculture, but with intensive prawn farming being abandoned in some areas because of pollution, replanting was now viable, Purnomo said.

Rural ecosystems

The north coast of Sumatra had 200,000 hectares of mangroves in 1987 and has 83,000 hectares now, according to Livelihoods, an organization to sustain rural ecosystems. It’s a vehicle for corporate support of the Yagasu project.

Suprayogi started Yagasu in 2001 to protect Sumatra’s elephants and switched his focus on mangroves after the tsunami devastated Aceh. Replanting has helped the economy of the local community by increasing villagers’ catch of the fish and crabs that shelter in the mangroves, he said.

Coastal forests reduce the risk of losses from typhoons and tsunamis by increasing the sustainable livelihoods and wealth in exposed areas, giving more resources to help communities recover, Yale-NUS’s McAdoo said.

“Where the mangroves are, the people are happy,” Suprayogi said.

Bloomberg

Half of Bengkulu`s coral reefs damaged by fish trawls

Antara News, Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Bengkulu (ANTARA News) - About 40 to 50 percent of Bengkulu province`s coral reefs have been damaged by trawls used by fishermen to catch fish, a local fisheries official said.

"The condition of coral reefs along the coast from Kaur to Mukomuko districts has deteriorated so much dues to the use of trawls by fishermen." Bismalinda, head of Bengkulu`s marine and fisheries office, said here Tuesday.

Most local fishermen were not aware of the adverse consequences of the use of trawls for the marine ecosystem, he said.

The damaging process had been going on for a long time and repairing it would take decades. Meanwhile, the degraded condition of the coral reefs had reduced fish` hauls, especially hauls of reef fish and lobsters along the Bengkulu coasts, he added.

The situation was currently being compounded by uncertain weather conditions which further depressed fishermen`s income, he said,

Coral reef damage was also caused by the use of explosives by the fishermen. The practice killed not only big but also small fishes.

Nowadays, he added, it was difficult for fishermen to catch fish near the coastline and they had to go farther out to sea to get fish while their boats could not do that.

To overcome the problem, local fisheries authorities were continuously informing fishermen of the hazards of using trawls and dynamite to catch fish, he said.

The government was making serious efforts to conserve and rehabilitate the coral reefs but they would succeed only with the participation and awareness of the people to preserve the ecosystem of coral reefs, he said.

Half of RI`s mangrove forests heavily damaged : Expert

Antara News, Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Bogor (ANTARA News) - Half of Indonesia`s mangrove forests are heavily damaged and facing total destruction due to ecological problems, an expert said here Tuesday.

Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) mangrove expert Professor Cecep Kusmana said most of Indonesia`s mangrove forests were in critical condition because of ecological disturbances.

Cecep hoped the government, the Forestry Ministry in particular, would undertake an emergency response to save the mangrove forests as they were on the brink of complete destruction.

"The threat to our mangrove forests is very concerning and they will vanish if we don?t act now," Cecep said.

The precarious conditions of the country`s mangrove forests needed to be addressed through serious actions by the central government , the Forestry Ministry and all stakeholders, he said.

The governments of regions where the mangroves were located also had an important role to play in saving them as they were the local policy makers.

"Local governments and the Forestry Ministry are expected to work together to stop further damage to mangrove forests," he said.

On the occasion, Professor Cecep also introduced the "Guludan" technique to save mangrove forests, which was considered as the appropriate technology to revitalize heavily damaged and critical forest areas.

The Guludan technique was mainly done by using a bamboo pole that planted deep in the mangrove areas and formed as a square partition with adjustable size.

In the research, the proper square measurement was done by 4 four meters wide, six meters long and two meters deep into the mangrove`s soil.

These Guludan must be filled with bags full of dirt on the bottom and then piled with approximately 50 centimeters high dirt on the top as the plant`s medium.

After the structure is built, mangrove sprouts can now be planted at a certain distance from each other.

Related Article:

Here's Looking @ Earth... Mangrove Mania (Imagery—NASA)

These maps show the location and relative density of mangroves, which cover roughly 137,760 square kilometers (53,190 square miles) of Earth’s surface. The forests can be found in 118 different countries and territories, though nearly 75 percent of their area occurs in just 15 countries. They are most often found straddling the equator between 25º North and South latitude. About 42 percent of the world’s mangroves are found in Asia, with 21 percent in Africa, 15 percent in North and Central America, 12 percent in Australia and the islands of Oceania, and 11 percent in South America.

President launches women plant trees campaign 2010

Antara News, Tuesday, November 23, 2010 15:07 WIB

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched a "Women Plant and Cultivate Trees Campaign 2010" at the Manggala Wanabhakti auditorium here Tuesday.

Present on the occasion were also First Lady Ani Yudhoyono, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hassan, Marine and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad and a number of foreign ambassadors in Jakarta.

The Women Plant Trees Campaign is a yearly activity which was started four years ago with different themes and formats of activity each year. In 2010, the program was focused on the activity of planting trees such as Ketapang and mangroves in coastal areas. It is expected that the program will improve the people`s economy and boost their awareness to preserve forests in coastal area.

The Tuesday inauguration also featured an exhibition and conference themed "Protection of Coastal Forests and Improvement of the People`s Prosperity."

Earlier, the People`s Coalition for Fishery Justice has appealed to the government on the need to preserve and improve mangrove forests.

The mangrove preservation is necessary to prevent them from disappearance from the face of the earth because the forests provide ground for fishes, shrimp, and mollusks for spawning and rearing.

According to data of the People`s Coalition for Fishery Justice (Kiara), damage of mangrove forests in the 1997-2008 period reached 68 percent.

Kiara program coordinator Abdul Halim said damage of the mangrove ecosystem was caused by industrial anthropogenic waste in coastal areas.

Besides, the other causes include coastal land conversion for industrial purposes, commercial centers and luxury residential areas. The wastes caused damage of the mangrove ecosystem, and consequently making it difficult for fishermen to earn a living, he said.

In the meantime, the Ministry of Marine and Fishery Affairs set itself a target that by 2014, some 1,440 hectares of coastal areas would be preserved preventing them from environmental damage along national coastal areas. And of the 1,440 ha, some 101.7 percent could be preserved each year.

Related Article:

President Yudhoyono acknowledges coastal communities` poverty

Fisherman receives international award on environmental preservation

Antara News, Friday, October 15, 2010 12:50 WIB

Bandarlampung, Sumatra (ANTARA News) - Heifer International, an international research development institution, has presented an award to Ahmad Salim (30), a fisherman from Pahawang Island, Lampung, for his efforts in preserving the environment.

"I was awarded the appreciation for my role in environmental and mangrove forest conservation on Pahawang Island in the last three years," he said here Friday.

Besides receiving the award, Ahmad is also entitled to a coaching fund prize of 1.000 US dollars for developing and conservation of the environment.

Ahmad Salim is a Pahawang islander who has been trained by Mitra Bentala, a non-profit organization on environmental issues, to save the ecosystem and biota in the Pahawang Island waters.

He started the activity in leading and training the villagers in conserving mangrove forests since 2007.

He was an environmental vandal before becoming famous as environment protector.

He used to go fishing by bombing and rooting mangrove plants in his fishing operations.

"Fishing in that way could earn me Rp200 thousand per day," he said.

He had not realized at that time that his action destroyed sea biota and might cause catastrophe.

His father, who was head of Pahawang village, has even resigned because of his action destroying the environment.

"My father always advised me to keep the environment well preserved, but I was an environmental vandal," he said.

He abandoned the bad habit in 2007 when he joined an environmental sustainability training held by Mitra Bentala.

After the training, Ahmad and his friends were grouped by the NGO to be the front guard of mangrove forest conservation.

"For three years we have worked hard raise and preserve the forests ," he added.

Ahmad did not expect that he would receive the international award for his services.

The international environmental award was given directly by Heifer International officer Meredith Rolf on September 29.

"Thank you for the award, and I hope everyone can also continue growing and preserving mangrove forests," he said.

North Jakarta plants 5,000 mangrove trees

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sat, 09/25/2010 11:38 AM

JAKARTA: The North Jakarta administration rallied around 1,750 residents to plant around 5,000 mangrove trees in the Pantai Indah Kapuk area on Friday to prevent coastal erosion.

“Mangrove trees will protect against waves that erode the coastline,” Jakarta Deputy Governor Prijanto said Friday during the tree planting event, as reported by beritajakarta.com.

“It’s hard to do this without support from residents along North Jakarta’s 35-kilometer coastline,” he said.

Prijanto urged residents from other areas on the North Jakarta coastline, such as Ancol, Pluit, Cilincing and Marunda, to follow suit.

“We also urge the residents to take care of these trees,” he said.

North Jakarta Mayor Bambang Sugiyono praised the public efforts to plant the trees. “Two days ago, my office planted 4,000 mangrove trees in Angke Kapuk natural tourism park,” he said. — JP

Some 69 pct of Java, Bali mangrove forests damaged

Antara News, Wednesday, July 28, 2010 12:45 WIB

Jakarta (ANTARA News)- The People`s Coalition for Fishery Justice has appealed to the government on the need to preserve and improve mangrove forests.

The mangrove preservation is necessary to prevent them from disappearance from the face of the earth because the forests provide ground for fishes, shrimp, and mollusks for spawning and rearing.

According to data of the People`s Coalition for Fishery Justice (Kiara), damage of mangrove forests in the 1997-2008 period reached 68 percent.

Kiara program coordinator Abdul Halim said in Jakarta Wednesday damage of the mangrove ecosystem was caused by industrial anthropogenic waste in coastal areas.

Besides, the other causes include coastal land conversion for industrial purposes, commercial centers and luxury residential areas. The wastes caused damage of the mangrove ecosystem, and consequently making it difficult for fishermen to earn a living, he said.

In the meantime, the Ministry of Marine and Fishery Affairs set itself a target that by 2014, some 1,440 hectares of coastal areas would be preserved preventing them from environmental damage along national coastal areas. And of the 1,440 ha, some 101.7 percent could be preserved each year.

"The target needs to be coupled with the seriousness of the Minister of Marine and Fishery Affairs in carrying out the program," Abdul Halim said.

He added that seriousness in preserving the northern coastal areas of Java and Bali could become a reality if the program did not restore the ecological and social functions of the coastal ecosystem.

It is under these circumstances that it would be very important to involve the fishermen and coastal communities, he said.

For this reason that it is time for the Ministry of Marine and Fishery Affairs for a refreshment in restoring the mangrove forest ecosystem and raise the living standard of fishermen and the community in the coastal regions.

Related Article:

Minister: Indonesia`s mangroves in critical condition