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Saturday, September 19, 2015

MAP staff Joins “Mangrove Conservation Education Consultative Meeting and Study Trip”




Contributed by: 
Ms. Mery Christina Nainggolan
MAP-Asia Volunteer Intern
  On 9-10 September 2015, Jim Enright, Asia Coordinator and Mery Christina Nainggolan, MAP Intern from Indonesia, attended a mangrove conservation consultative meeting and study trip in Bangkok. MAP-Asia was invited by Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Center for  Archaeology and Fine Arts (SEAMEO SPAFA)  to participate in a consultative meeting and study visit to Khlong Phitthaya Longkorn Primary School and Bangpakong Bovorn Witthayayon Secondary School, as SEAMEO SPAFA has been associated with both schools in their mangrove conservation education by supporting a Mangrove Eco-museum Project and promoting mangrove education teaching materials.   
  SEAMEO SPAFA is an international organization dedicated to promoting co-operation in education, science and culture in Southeast Asia.
Participants are welcomed by Director of Bang Khun Tien District and School Director at Khlong Phitthaya Longkron Primary School
  
   SEAMEO directors, mangrove environmentalists, educators and practitioners from Khlong Phitthaya Longkorn Primary School and Bangpakong Bovorn Witthayayon Secondary School Thailand joined this event. The objectives of this study visit and consultative meeting was 

   (1)  to discuss possible collaboration in multi-disciplinary project related to mangrove conservation education, as SEAMEO SPAFA aims to promote and expand the school’s best practices in mangrove conservation education to other schools in SEAMEO member countries ; 

   (2) to identify issues of priority for further action; 

   (3) to establish working group to examine the areas of collaboration and collective interest. 

Students learning in the mangrove classroom at Bangpakong Bovorn Witthayayon Secondary School

   The study visit on 9 September 2015 began at Bangpakong Bovorn Witthayayon School, a secondary school which is located in Bang Pakong. The participants walked arround the mangrove study area after a welcome speech by Mr. Sakdetch Jumanee, Director of the school. Bangpakong Bovorn Witthayayon School is situated in a mangrove environment, covering eleven hectares of land and mangroves. 
   Today this school provides education to about eight hundred school children and hires some eighty teachers. SEAMEO SAPAFA began collaboration with this school in 2006 to help develop its Mangrove Eco - Museum project by improving the school curriculum using the mangrove as the nature and cultural learning centre. 
   The assistance includes creating and installing informational signs in Thai and English languages and collaborating with the school in organising a regional workshops in 2007 on making mangrove eco-museum. 
   The outcome of the Mangrove Eco-Museum Project is to infuse environmental subject matter and mangrove conservation issues in the classroom lessons to cultivate students’ awarness and good environmental practices.  The school has made effective use of its natural mangrove as a learning area for students, and also facilitated frequent study visits from other schools and institutions for environmental awareness raising.
Student, Nattason Chunhakantaros showing organic vegetable site to MAP intern, Ms. Mery Christina Nainggolan at Khlong Phitthaya Longkorn Primary School
   After lunch the study visit continued to Khlong Phitthaya Longkorn, a primary school located in Bang Khun Tien District, under the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA)It is unique in the fact that it’s the only school in Bangkok with mangroves. As study tour participants arrived at the school they were welcomed by the students performance of traditional music and dancing, followed by the introductory remarks delivered by Director of Bang Khun Thien District.
   After having enjoyed some traditional snacks prepared by the students, participants were guided to visit the mangrove study area, students’ environmental conservation activites booths, and the organic vegetable project site. Khlong Phittaya Longkorn School is set in natural environment that includes mangroves. 
    The school’s effort to conserve, protect and restore the mangrove and environment are based on its curriculum, cultivating awarness of the environment amongst its student through daily activites that sustain conservation practices.  As initial undertakings, SEAMEO SPAFA collaborated with the Khlong Phittaya Longkorn School in publishing a booklet on the school’s mangrove rehabilitation, and in promoting the school as an exemplary model in conservation.   The School in the Mangrove” which can be download as a pdf by clicking this link: http://www.seameo-spafa.org/resource_detail.php?tid=487&c=4
Students on the mangrove walkway at Khlong Phitthaya Longkorn Primary School

 A consultative meeting was held the following day at the Amari Watergate Hotel, Bangkok. The points of discussion are: 
   (A) Areas of collaboration: establishment of sister schools between Thailand and Indonesia;

   (B) Areas of collaboration concerns will be:

  1.  Science teaching; 
  2. Sufficiency economy; 
  3. Conservation and restoration to be sustainable at the community level;
   (C) SEAMEO SPAFA will be in charge of institutionalizing the collaboration between Khlong Phitthaya Longkorn Primary School and Bangpakong Bovorn Witthayayon Secondary School Thailand, partner SEAMEO Centres(i.e. BIOTROP, SEAQIS and SEAMOLEC) and MAP;

   (D) Important to instill values education concerned with environmental protection at a young age to follow them to adult. 


   MAP welcomes this new partnership with SEAMEO SPAFA with the hope MAP’s own Marvelous Mangrove school curriculum can be utilized by selected schools with the mutual goal of increasing mangrove conservation awareness among students in the Southeast Asia Region.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

MAP News Issue 373, Sept 20, 2015

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PREVIEW VERSION
The MAP News
373rd Edition                                Sept. 19, 2015

FEATURE STORY

LAST CHANCE to VOTE for MAP’s new Video
Think Forests
USA - Please watch MAP's new short video called Think Mangrove Forests, which has been entered into a video competition held by Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). In ‘Think Mangrove Forests’, Leo Thom, Alfredo Quarto, Jim Enright and Martin Keeley tell the story of why we need mangroves, how they are under threat, and what we can do to protect them.

1. If you like our video, scroll down and write a comment in the box that says "Join the discussion..."
2. Make sure you are signed into either twitter, facebook, google, or if you prefer sign up with Discus to leave a comment. This counts as a vote for our video
3. Scroll back up to the video and use the social media icons to share the video with friends, family and colleagues.

Please click this link to watch the video and follow with your vote!


AFRICA

Kenyan fishing town swaps boats for mangroves and mariculture
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KENYA - For the past five years, members of the Mtongani Self Help Group have been acting as volunteer forest guards, restoring mangroves along the Kilifi Creek, some 75 km (46.6 miles) from Mombasa, Kenya's second-largest city. They also maintain four tidal fish ponds nearby, which help them conserve local marine life and make a living as climate change impacts bite and fish catches on the open sea shrink. "I am educating my children from the proceeds I get from planting these mangroves, and selling the prawns and fish we farm," said Mramba. According to the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI), coastal mangrove forests are among the world's most important wetland ecosystems, providing crucial habitat for wildlife and fish, slowing coral reef sedimentation, and protecting coastlines from severe weather events. READ MORE

Protecting Our Mangroves
GAMBIA – The National Environment Agency's project on coastal resilience in which they are planting mangroves in communities like Kiang is a wonderful initiative. Settlements along the Bintang Bolong tributary, from Bwian in WCR to Sandeng in LRR, there is a presence of high mortality rate of mangroves on one hand and salt intrusion on the other. This is worrying because mangrove serves as environmental indicator and also provides home to many aquatic lives, breeding spot for juvenile fish. Planting mangroves can help the communities regenerate their vegetation cover and get ready to fight climate change. Mangroves are critical to habitat for many species of fish and wildlife; they serve as coastal fish and shellfish nursery habitat, and produce large quantities of leaf material that becomes the basis for a detritus food web. READ MORE

ASIA

MAP teams up with South East Asian Ministers of Education
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Jim Enright, MAP Asia Coordinator and Mery Christina Nainggolan, MAP Intern from Indonesia, recently attended a mangrove conservation consultative meeting and study trip in Bangkok. MAP-Asia was invited by Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Center for  Archaeology and Fine Arts (SEAMEO SPAFA)  to participate in a consultative meeting and study visit to Khlong Phitthaya Longkorn Primary School and Bangpakong Bovorn Witthayayon Secondary School, as SEAMEO SPAFA has been associated with both schools in their mangrove conservation education by supporting a Mangrove Eco-museum Project and promoting mangrove education teaching materials.  SEAMEO SPAFA is an international organization dedicated to promoting co-operation in education, science and culture in Southeast Asia. MAP welcomes this new partnership with SEAMEO SPAFA with the hope MAP’s own Marvelous Mangrove school curriculum can be utilized by selected schools with the mutual goal of increasing mangrove conservation awareness among students in the Southeast Asia Region. READ MORE

Ecotourism success story
THAILAND - A homestay in Trang has helped a small community thrive while keeping intact its way of life. It all began with the need to feed their families. Today, the small cluster of people in Ban Bo Hin community who run a successful homestay have become an ecotourism model for other villages. Bo Hin in Si Khao district, Trang province, is a community tourist attraction founded by the Ban Pru Jud Community Enterprise. It has been operating for 10 years showcasing the value of homeland and the self-sufficiency philosophy, with monthly income doubling to 40,000 baht over that period for families that jointly provide the homestay service. In the past, people in this community depended mainly on fish cage farming and fishing. But now many of them prefer to be tour guides informing mostly urban visitors about their community lifestyle. Bo Hin was the first community to start a homestay in Trang. Today there are eight homestays in eight different communities in the province, and more than 100 in the South, reflecting the growing ecotourism trend in this part of Thailand. READ MORE

Singapore is dredging our home away: hands off our sand!
SINGAPORE - Sand is a valuable resource that is becoming increasingly scarce. The construction industry, which consumes the lion’s share, prefers rough sand from riverbeds and coastal areas. Dredging, however, is responsible for the wholesale destruction of aquatic and coastal ecosystems. Singapore is the world’s largest importer of sand. The city-state consumes 30 million tons a year for construction projects and land reclamation – and obtains it by dredging away its neighbors’ beaches, coastlines, riverbeds and entire islands. In Cambodia, fishermen and their families are actively resisting the destruction of their rivers and mangrove forests by illegal dredgers. Activists of our Cambodian partner Mother Nature are supporting their protests and the organization’s co-founder Sun Mala and two of his colleagues were arrested on August 17. Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen prohibited the export of sand from riverbeds and coastal areas in 2009, but Singapore and the Cambodian authorities are simply ignoring the ban. READ MORE


AMERICAS

MAP members collaborate on text book.
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USA – MAP’s executive director, Alfredo Quarto, and Sara Lavenhar, MAP’s outreach coordinator have recently collaborated to write a chapter of a new school textbook on food regulation law policy. The textbook, scheduled to print in May of 2016, features a chapter titled “Industrial Aquaculture: Human Intervention in Natural Law” which was coauthored by the two. International Food Law and Policy is an interdisciplinary work, with a comprehensive, reader-friendly approach to teaching the major aspects of food regulation, law, policy, food safety and environmental sustainability in a global context.  It provides a foundation for courses and master’s programs in environmental management, food law, policy and regulation, and sustainable development around the world. READ MORE

Mangroves are a critical component
USA - Take Southwest Florida’s mangroves away, and what do you have? Fewer fish, less wildlife and dirtier water. Simply put, mangroves make the area what it is, and though they were once viewed as a nuisance to be ripped out for waterfront development, they are now protected by Florida law. Mangroves are also strange and fascinating organisms, plants that thrive in low-oxygen soils and salt water. In the fourth century B.C., Greek philosopher Theophrastus seemed baffled in describing the mangroves of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf: “These trees are all washed by the sea up to their middle ... and they are held up by their roots like a polyp, for whenever there is an ebb-tide, (the roots) may be seen. ... Some have their roots always flooded by the sea ... and nevertheless the tree does not perish by the sea.” READ MORE

Carbon Dioxide and Mangroves: Equivalent to Removing Cars From Road
USA - Mangrove conservation efforts not only prevent habitat loss, but also help regulate carbon dioxide emissions. According to researchers from Duke University, protected areas in Indonesia have maintained 35,594 acres of mangrove habitats and prevented the release into the atmosphere of about 13 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that the mangrove roots help store.  "This is not a small number," Daniela Miteva, a postdoctoral researcher at The Nature Conservancy and a Duke University alumna, said in a news release. "Protected areas have reduced the rate of mangrove loss by about 28 percent in Indonesia, which has the world's largest area of mangroves." The researchers analyzed the success of protected areas from 2000 to 2010. Their findings were recently published in the journal Ecological Economics. READ MORE

New Student Project to Restore Mangroves in The Bahamas
mangroves
BAHAMAS - This week, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation (KSLOF) is launching Bahamian Awareness of Mangroves (or B.A.M. for short), a new program to support mangrove education and restoration in The Bahamas. The B.A.M. program will provide classrooms with lesson plans and activities as well as funding and support to take students on field trips to mangrove forests. Students will get the opportunity to experience the mangrove ecosystem first-hand and help restore it. During the project, students will grow mangrove propagules in their classroom that they will study and plant in a local mangrove forest at the end of the school year. Amy Heemsoth, the Director of Education at KSLOF is in Abaco this week educating students about life in a mangrove forest, conducting teacher trainings, and leading field trips into mangrove forests to connect students with nature. She hopes that “students who participate in the project will take ownership of the mangroves in their country and that they will be inspired and empowered to preserve them, even after the project is complete.” READ MORE

EUROPE

UK government highlights opposition to plan for Bangladesh coal mine
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UK - The UK government has published a statement today that highlights the fierce opposition to British company GCM Resources’ plans for a massive open cast coal mine in Phulbari, north-west Bangladesh. The statement notes protestors “calling strikes, blockading roads and occupying the company’s local offices”. GCM’s planned Phulbari coal mine has provoked repeated protests by local people. Three people were killed and many more injured when paramilitary officers opened fire on a demonstration against the project in 2006. Protests in 2013 and 2014 forced the company’s CEO Gary Lye to abandon visits to the area. The government’s statement expresses “regret” that the company had failed to update its plans or produce a human rights impact assessment for the project, as recommended in the findings of its investigation under the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprise. READ MORE

OCEANA

India losing green cover faster than ever, warns study
western-ghats-342762_1280_3202
AUSTRALIA - The world's forests have shrunk by three per cent since 1990 - an area equivalent to the size of South Africa - and India is among the countries who are losing their forest cover faster than others, researchers have warned. The green cover is being more rapidly lost in some of the developing and poorest countries including India, Vietnam and Ghana. "In low-income countries with high forest cover, forests are being cleared for direct subsistence by individuals and families and large scale agriculture for broader economic development," said lead researcher and professor Rod Keenan from University of Melbourne. "Some have policies and regulations to protect forests, but they do not have the capacity and resources to implement them," he added in United Nation's Global Forest Resources Assessment (GFRA) 2015 report released this week. READ MORE



LAST WORD(S)

MAP extends a warm welcome to our newest intern – Welcome Tina!

Hi everyone !

Let me introduce myself. I am the new intern in the MAP Thailand and just arrived here in Trang.

My name is Mery Christina (you can call me Tina), I come from Indonesia.  Recently I just finished my job for two years at a Disaster Risk Reduction Program of Mercy Corps for 2 villages that is prone to flood in West Java Indonesia. I have dealt with infrastructure projects such as evacuation path construction, river dredging construction, small scale organic farming setup; and organizing several capacity building for communities such as water rescue training, Disaster Risk Reduction Capacity Building and organizational skills training and etc.

As working with Mangrove projects is the first time for me, I hope that I could contibute and learn much by being an intern here in MAP.

Best regards,
Mery Christina Nainggolan
MAP-Asia Office Development & Field Project Assistant (Intern)



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Singapore is dredging our home away: hands off our sand! TAKE ACTION

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Learn more about the affects of the shrimp industry on mangroves by visiting our blog

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Thursday, September 3, 2015

MAP News Issue 372, Sept 5, 2015

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The MAP News
372nd Edition                                Sept. 5, 2015


FEATURE STORY

PHULBARI UPDATE Govt says ‘no’ to open-pit mine in Bangladesh
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Bangladesh - The state minister for power, energy and mineral resources, Nasrul Hamid, on Sunday said that the government was not interested to extract coal from the deposits in the north Bengal region using open-pit method. ‘We have decided not to extract coal right now… We must consider high density of population and the agro-based economy of the mining area,’ he said while addressing as the chief guest a seminar on ‘Energy Challenges to Vision 2030.’ The discussion was organized by weekly Energy and Power magazine. Instead, the government is planning to use imported coal to run large power plants to be installed with a combined generation capacity of about 20,000 MW by 2030, he said. Nasrul’s remark came three days ahead of August 26, the 9th anniversary of the killing of protesters who had opposed in 2006 a move for open pit mining by London-based Asia Energy company at Phulbari of Dinajpur. The then Bangladesh Rifles men had opened fire on a peaceful rally and killed at least three people. On that day, police, RAB and BDR indiscriminately had beaten people, injuring over 200 children, men and women who attended that peaceful rally and demanded cancellation of the project. READ MORE

ASIA
 
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is pertinent because these same dams upriver are killing the mangroves in the Delta as well.
Dams 'destroying Mekong fish stock'
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THAILAND - Fishermen in delta and Northeast Thailand say dams in China and Laos have hit breeding and yields, forcing many to quit. River fishermen have already suffered dramatically from dams and irrigation works, which have decimated fish stocks and undermined livelihoods that supported families for generations. Nguyen Anh Duy, a 33-year-old, third-generation fisherman from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, is one of the millions of rural people who rely on the fertility of the river to make a living. However, his occupation as a fisherman who depends on wild-caught fish from the river will be lost in a few years. "I am a fisherman who has caught fish in the water around here for all my life. My father and my grandfather also did the same job as me. I was born and grew up here," he said about his life. He and his wife and two children live together within the small confines of his boat. "The fish have been gradually disappearing over the years. My catch is getting smaller and smaller. In the dry season, most fish are small and hard to catch. But the fish price has gone up every year too," he said. READ MORE
 
Effects of different management regimes on mangrove ecosystem services
INDONESIA - A new report, published by Wageningen University and Wetlands International, seeks to fill a significant gap in mangrove ecosystem service estimates. While several studies have sought to measure and value the ecosystem services provided by mangrove ecosystems in general, this new piece of research has for the first time conducted separate evaluations for zones that are characterised by distinct management activities – so-called ‘management regimes’, which include protected, rehabilitated, silvo-fishery and converted mangrove systems. The analysis conducted for the report served as the basis for a peer reviewed article on the journal Ocean & Coastal Management. READ MORE
 
AMERICAS
 
Disney Conservation Fund applauds MAP’s curriculum on Facebook
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The Mangrove Action Project has had a busy summer continuing to introduce its Marvellous Mangroves curriculum in China, India and Bangladesh! During a 3-day workshop in Bangladesh, teachers and students visited the Sundarbans mangrove forest, the largest mangrove forest in the world, to study different species while learning about mangrove conservation. READ MORE
 
2016 Mangrove & Macrobenthos Meeting (MMM4) announced
USA - The Mangrove & Macrobenthos Meeting (MMM4), will be hosted in the USA along the Atlantic Coast of Florida, July 18-22, 2016. The conference will be held at Flagler College, in historic downtown St. Augustine. This location along the Atlantic Coast of Florida represents the transition between temperate and tropical zones where the pressures of climate change are especially visible. As a result of decreasingly cold winters and sea level rise, the distribution of mangroves is expanding northward and landward along this part of the Florida peninsula into coastal wetlands that have historically been dominated by saltmarsh plants. This location, which currently contains the northernmost Atlantic exemplars of all three mangrove species found in North America, provides numerous opportunities for conference attendees to witness the consequences of climate change at this dynamic ecotone, setting the stage for an international discussion on the causes and consequences of mangrove ecosystem responses to an ever-changing climate. READ MORE
 
Little creature, HUGE footprint
USA - Three years ago when J. Boone Kauffman, an ecologist from Oregon State University and an associate of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), released a paper that calculated the enormous impact mangrove shrimp farming has on the environment, he decided to personalize the research. He put the shrimps on dinner tables. Boone estimated that a 100-gram serving of shrimp – a shrimp cocktail, say – had an ecosystem carbon footprint of 198 kilograms of CO2 if it had been produced on a typical mangrove fish farm. That tempting appetizer held an unambiguous warning sign about habitat loss and deforestation. “The carbon footprint of the shrimp is about 10-fold greater than the land use carbon footprint of an equivalent amount of beef produced from a pasture formed from a tropical rainforest,” he recently told an audience of scientists as CIFOR. READ MORE
 
Message from MAPS Executive Director: We should not assume, as the author seems too ready to assume, all is well now with CP seafood exports just because they say so. There must be an independent verification process to ensure this. If 9 out pf 10 suppliers were cut off by CP because of this scandal, how has CP managed to replace that former supply chain with "clean" suppliers. And, surely the company had some earlier knowledge of the  miss-steps of its suppliers, after all the news of such trafficking practices in the industry goes back several years, and yet CP continued to buy from these suppliers. What this lawsuit points out is that companies like COSTCO need to better scrutinize the quality of those products they sell to ensure they are not tainted by chemical poisons or toxins or the blood, sweat and tears of slave labor!  COSTCO should not further subject its customers to the choice of more "blood shrimp" in their seafood purchases.
This is the other seafood lawsuit that deserves attention
USA - This week, a number of companies and consumers have made headlines by filing price-fixing lawsuits against three major tuna producers here in the United States, but there’s another legal case going on against an equally large company that deserves emphasis this week too, as a lesson on how much attention the industry’s customers are paying to how it does business. The 19 August lawsuit by California resident Monica Sud against Costco and its shrimp supplier, Thailand’s CP Foods, is a good example of citizen activism, as long as the litigants keep in mind the complexity of the modern seafood supply chain. Sud is suing, on behalf of all Costco customers who buy shrimp from the wholesale club store, to seek restitution from the club for shrimp she bought that she believes was the product of slave labor. While she is seeking restitution her attorney, Derek Howard, has made it clear that this is about more than just money. “We’re interested in action, not litigation,” he said, indicating he and Sud would be willing to sit down with Costco and make a pledge of changes on Costco’s part a factor in the case. READ MORE
 
Don't destroy a delicate marine ecosystem
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ANTIQUA - Investment firm YIDA International recently purchased 1600 acres of undeveloped coastal land with the intention of building a huge, billion-dollar tourist development on it. Hard Rock International, owners of the Hard Rock Cafe and Casinos, has announced they will be the first to build on the land. The land is a delicate marine ecosystem that lies within a Marine Reserve Area, but despite these legal protections, plans indicate the clearing of marshes, mangroves, mud flats, coral reefs, and critical nesting vegetation. Completion of the project would mean either breaking laws, or changing them to allow for ill-advised development. These habitats have provided for the people of these islands for more than 4000 years. These ecosystems also protect the Antiguan and Barbudan people from the growing threat of climate change, such as rising sea levels. The mangroves are potentially life-saving buffers against storm surges caused by hurricanes, and are crucial  nurseries for fish as well as the habitat of many birds and other species. READ MORE
 
Tropical forests almost the size of India set to be axed by 2050
CANADA - Tropical forests covering an area nearly the size of India are set to be destroyed in the next 35 years, a faster rate of deforestation than previously thought, a study warned. The Washington-based Center for Global Development, using satellite imagery and data from 100 countries, predicted 289 million hectares (714 million acres) of tropical forests would be felled by 2050. The results will have dangerous implications for accelerating climate change, the center's study said. Deforestation contributes to climate change as forests store carbon while acting as a filter taking the heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas out of the atmosphere. If current trends continue, tropical deforestation will add 169 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by 2050, the equivalent of running 44,000 coal-fired power plants for a year, the study's lead author said. READ MORE
 
EUROPE
 
Give locals forest responsibility, researchers urge
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UK - People living in and around tropical forests need to play a bigger role in woodland management to reduce the environmental degradation that affects three-quarters of the world’s forests, say researchers. A study published in Science last month (21 August) found that Earth has lost 100 million hectares of tropical forest in the past 30 years – an area about three times the size of Germany. However, people living directly off forest resources have the skills and knowledge to use their surrounding woodland sustainably, the study states. Their strategies for resource management should be rolled out to prevent tropical forests from being left in a “fragmented, simplified and degraded state”, says Simon Lewis, a researcher at the geography department of University College London, United Kingdom, and lead author of the study. The paper is part of a Science special issue summarizing the latest research on forest health and management. READ MORE


LAST WORD(S)
A Letter from MAP Executive Director
To Southwest Florida Water Management District
Brooksville Headquarters
2379 Broad Street
Brooksville, FL 34604-6899
Phone: (352) 796-7211
 
Dear Friends at SWFWMD,
 
I would strongly recommend that the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) deny the permit for the developer Pat Neal to destroy an area of mangroves in order to build four homes on Perico Island.. It is not a good idea to destroy mangroves and this is further important because of the high quality of these mangroves on the island adjacent to the pristine Florida waters of Anna Maria Sound. The SWFWMD should follow the lead of the administrative law judge who had earlier recommended that the water management district’s board deny the order.
 
With sea level rise due to climate change and increasing intensity and frequency of coastal storms and strong waves, Florida needs all the mangroves it can conserve and sustain. It is not a good time to worsen an already serious deficit in existing coastal buffer, thus causing further damage and likelihood of worse environmental repercussions. Mangroves are vital wetlands, essential for marine life and protecting a healthy coastal zone. Please do not permit this further loss of an already diminished ecosystem.
 
Towards Better Long-Term Coastal Conservation and Resource Management,
 
Alfredo Quarto,
 
Executive Director
 
Mangrove Action Project
http://www.mangroveactionproject.org
 
READERS To submit comments to SFWWMD email Info@watermatters.org


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MAP News Issue 593, March 9, 2024

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