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The MAP News
455th Edition November 10, 2018 |
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FEATURE Mangrove Restoration Potential
 GLOBAL - Mangrove forests are important for food production, carbon storage and sequestration, coastal protection, water purification, and tourism, which is why there is an increasing need not only to prevent further loses, but to increase mangrove areas through restoration. TNC has partnered with IUCN to develop a global model and map of mangrove restoration potential to help practitioners prioritize areas, and as a way to support and encourage mangrove restoration projects globally. The model incorporates information on both current and historic distribution of mangrove forests, as well as local drivers of mangrove loss and degradation (e.g., urbanization and industrial development, conversion to agriculture and aquaculture ponds, deforestation for fuelwood or timber, altered freshwater regimes, pollution and coastal erosion), which can vary in extent and severity depending on the region. Environmental (e.g., wave energy, tides) and social factors (e.g., population density, demographics), as well as future projections of sea level rise, urbanization, and weather events are other factors that can influence restoration suitability, and will also be incorporated into the model where possible. READ MORE AFRICA “Without our forest, we have no life, we disappear”  CAMEROON - "Life in my Baka community is getting harder and harder. We live mostly from the resources of the forest, and with our forest is increasingly exploited by foresters, and as the state continues to create national parks and reserves, the forest no longer provides us with enough food and medicinal plants. With the introduction of heavy forestry equipment, the game animals have disappeared. Poverty has become established, and we must convert ourselves into farmers, where again we face serious problems linked to land conflicts and lack of land. Our Bantu neighbours hold all the lands. Our rights of use of the forest, land and natural resources are ignored. "We are a sharing community, and we try to share what we find in the forest to eat. During certain times of the year there is still enough food (wild mango, mushrooms, wild yams, rats, fish, leaves and roots). Since our community is growing, we divide into groups to go camping in the middle of the forest to stock up on food. During these trips, families eat well.” READ MORE ASIA Giving mangroves a voice: One man's mission to protect the future of Bahak Indah  INDONESIA - The pioneer behind Bahak Indah’s transformation is 64-year-old Samsuri, who for 20 years has been planting mangroves and raising awareness among the local communities and government on the importance of mangroves Samsuri and his family used to walk on the east side of the beach, where the mangroves were thick and healthy. In the early 1990s, he noticed that the mangrove roots stabilise sediment, and had the idea of growing mangroves closer to his village, where fish and shrimp ponds were being heavily impacted by coastal erosion. At a time when most of his community were unaware of the role of mangroves in coastal protection, and mostly used mangrove leaves as livestock fodder, this was a revolutionary idea.In 1998, during Ramadan, Samsuri put his idea into action. After suhoor (the meal eaten at dawn before the start of the fast), he and his younger brother collected mangrove seeds and planted them on Bahak Beach, near the villages. READ MORE. Big aquaculture bulldozes Borneo MALAYSIA - Swinging his machete with an economy of movement that only the jungle can teach, Matakin Bondien lopped a stray branch from the path of his boat. He hopped barefoot from the prow, climbed a muddy slope and stared once more at what he’d lost. Not long ago, the clearing had been home to mangroves, saltwater-loving trees that anchor a web of life stretching from fish larvae hatching in the cradle of their underwater roots to the hornbills squawking at their crown. Now the trees’ benevolent presence was gone, in their place a swath of stripped soil littered with felled trunks as gray as fossils. “Do you think we can find any food in this place now?” asked Bondien, a village leader of the Tombonuo people. “The company thinks it can do anything it wants — that we don’t count.” The company is Sunlight Inno Seafood. READ MORE Mangroves can help countries mitigate their carbon emissions  SINGAPORE - Geographers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have found that coastal vegetation such as mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes may be the most effective habitats to mitigate carbon emissions. The study, which was conducted by researchers from the Department of Geography at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, indicates that nations with large coastlines could expand these ecosystems to further counteract their fossil fuel emissions. These findings were published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters on 24 October 2018. With the recent Paris Agreement setting a target for all nations to become carbon neutral in the future, utilizing these natural ecosystems could help to achieve this goal.READ MORE Course builds capacity for integrated coastal management in Asia  THAILAND - Since its implementation in 2007, Mangroves for the Future (MFF) has recognised ICM as an important approach towards the goal of building the resilience of coastal ecosystems and communities. Enhancing the capacity of coastal management practitioners at local, national and regional levels — whether in government, NGOs, the private sector, or research and academic institutions — is fundamental to achieving this goal. In 2007, MFF teamed up with the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) to develop a regional postgraduate ICM certificate course that combined academic lectures, practical skills training, and field-based learning about coastal management. The programme was designed as an intensive six week course, and was offered on a near-annual basis at the AIT campus. Since it began in 2007, more than 140 mid-career professionals from government and non-government organisations in 11 MFF member countries across Asia have completed it. READ MORE Where goats drink first: Women struggle as coastal India grows saltier  INDIA - Dripping wet and looking exhausted, Shompa Pal winces as she walks into her home, holding tightly to a knot at the end of her saree. From it she extracts and lays out to dry a soggy 100 rupee note, her earnings from wading waist deep in the brackish waters of the Bidyadhari River for four hours, dragging a triangular net behind her. On a good day, she catches a thousand thread-like baby prawns that swim in during the two daily high tides, earning 100 rupees ($1.40) from a dealer who sells them to private firms that grow and export prawns. Such work is common for poor women. Long contact with salty water, or bathing in contaminated pond water, gives many poor women skin diseases or reproductive tract infections, the health economist told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.READ MORE AMERICAS 60% of world's wildlife has been wiped out since 1970  CANADA - Well over half the world's population of vertebrates, from fish to birds to mammals, have been wiped out in the past four decades, says a new report from the World Wildlife Fund. Between 1970 and 2014, there was 60 per cent decline, on average, among 16,700 wildlife populations around the world according to the 2018 edition of the Living Planet Report released Monday. "We've had a loss of nearly two-thirds, on average, of our wild species," said James Snider, vice-president of science, research and innovation for WWF-Canada. "The magnitude of that should be eye opening… We really are reaching a point where we're likely to see species go extinct. That's true in Canada and abroad." READ MORE Capitalism is killing the world’s wildlife populations, not ‘humanity’  USA - The latest Living Planet report from the WWF makes for grim reading: a 60% decline in wild animal populations since 1970, collapsing ecosystems, and a distinct possibility that the human species will not be far behind. The report repeatedly stresses that humanity’s consumption is to blame for this mass extinction, and journalists have been quick to amplify the message. The Guardian headline reads “Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations”, while the BBC runs with “Mass wildlife loss caused by human consumption”. No wonder: in the 148-page report, the word “humanity” appears 14 times, and “consumption” an impressive 54 times. There is one word, however, that fails to make a single appearance: capitalism. It might seem, when 83% of the world’s freshwater ecosystems are collapsing (another horrifying statistic from the report), that this is no time to quibble over semantics. And yet, as the ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer has written, “finding the words is another step in learning to see”. READ MORE GLOBAL Driven by warming waters, marine life is on the move  EUROPE - Reuters has discovered that from the waters off the East Coast of the United States to the coasts of West Africa, marine creatures are fleeing for their lives, and the communities that depend on them are facing disruption as a result. As waters warm, fish and other sea life are migrating poleward, seeking to maintain the even temperatures they need to thrive and breed. The number of creatures involved in this massive diaspora may well dwarf any climate impacts yet seen on land. In the U.S. North Atlantic, for example, fisheries data show that in recent years, at least 85 percent of the nearly 70 federally tracked species have shifted north or deeper, or both, when compared to the norm over the past half-century. And the most dramatic of species shifts have occurred in the last 10 or 15 years.READ MORE LAST WORD Please add me to your newsletter email list, thank you! We live in the Florida Keys, and Hurricane Irma did massive damage to our mangroves. We formed the Conch Republic Marine Army, that is focused on getting the trash out of the mangroves, and hope to replant new mangroves one day :) Laura conchrepublicmarinearmy.com  |
Video: Mangroves for the Future - A look bacK. As the latest phase of Mangroves for the Future (MFF) draws to a close, this video highlights some of the project’s most successful initiatives – from local women supporting national park management in Viet Nam to an island in the Maldives that has become a model for waste management, and everything in between. View Here Volunteer with MAP
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Mangrove Action ProjectClick here to view past newsletters |
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Partnering with mangrove forest communities, grassroots NGOs, researchers and local governments to conserve and restore mangrove forests and related coastal ecosystems, while promoting community-based, sustainable management of coastal resources.
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Map News Issue 455, November 10, 2018
Thursday, October 25, 2018
MAP News Issues 454 - Oct. 27, 2018
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The MAP News
454th Edition October 27, 2018 |
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FEATURE Mangrove no longer for shrimp farming
 MALAYSIA - No more mangrove land will be approved for shrimp farming in Sabah. Agriculture and Food Industries Minister Datuk Junz Wong said mangrove destruction must be stopped for the sake of the environment. “The destruction of valuable natural environment assets are irreversible. Instead, we should encourage agricultural development, Wong said during a visit to a privately-owned shrimp farm at Sungai Telaga in Pitas to learn more about how farming is done. “We need to make sure that there is enough for the local market before exporting.” Meanwhile, Wong said he rejected an application to start prawn farming on mangrove land. A representative from six villages which were initially going to be affected by shrimp farming on the land, welcomed the minister’s decision. “We have been pleading for the government to stop mangrove destruction and prevent businesses from coming in,” said Mastupang Somoi. READ MORE AFRICA A fifth of Abu Dhabi's mangroves in moderate or poor health, study shows  ABU – DHABI - An estimated 20 per cent of Abu Dhabi’s mangroves are in deteriorating or moderate health, a new assessment by the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi revealed. More than 150 square kilometres of Abu Dhabi’s coastline are covered in mangrove forests, whose dense thickets are a breeding ground for fish, birds, insects and marine invertebrates, and a carbon sink. Satellite mapping found that 80 per cent of the emirate’s mangroves are healthy, while 15 per cent are in moderate condition and 5 per cent are in deteriorating health. “This gives a snapshot of the condition right now and can help identify areas under stress,” said Amna Al Mansoori, an assistant scientist in marine habitats at the agency’s terrestrial and marine biodiversity section. “This project can give us a bird’s-eye view.” Mangrove health was determined by measuring the spectral reflectance of the forests. The greener the mangroves, the healthier the site. Patches of the Eastern Mangroves on Abu Dhabi island were found to be under stress. READ MORE Satellite-derived Mangrove Health Assessment to Abu Dhabi  ABU DHABI - TCarta, a global provider of geospatial products and services, has been commissioned by Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) to carry out a landmark mangrove health assessment covering the entire Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The assessment contains mangrove condition information derived from high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery. “The satellite-derived vegetation analysis process we developed for this project can be applied to large-area crop and forestry health mapping anywhere in the world,” said Chris Burnett, TCarta project manager. For EAD, the TCarta report delivered some promising results. With 80 percent of the Emirate’s mangrove forests found to be healthy, this was encouraging news. The innovative project also enabled EAD to designate conservation areas for immediate protection. The data helped EAD to assess the relative success of existing schemes with the view to applying the lessons learnt into practice for future endeavours. “As part of the assessment, we created a Disturbance Index showing precisely where the most mangrove stress is occurring,” said Burnett. “EAD will use this to determine – and potentially mitigate – the external factors causing the mangrove conditions to decline.” READ MORE ASIA MMM5 Mangroves & People – A call for submissions  SINGAPORE - The 5th international Mangrove Macrobenthos and Management (MMM5) conference will be held in 'downtown Singapore' from the 1st to the 5th of July 2019. The MMM series, first started in 2000, represents the largest single gathering of researchers, practitioners and policy makers interested in the science and conservation of mangrove forests. MMM is a global conference series, and MMM5 is the first MMM conference to be held in Southeast Asia - a region home to the highest biodiversity and largest extent of mangroves. However, it is also a region that has seen some of the highest rates of mangrove loss over the last 50 years. Thus, MMM5 is a great opportunity to share research on linkages between mangroves and people, and how we can better conserve threatened mangrove forests. READ MORE Come clean on mangrove forest clearing in Juru, authorities told  MALAYSIA - A swathe of the last remaining mangrove forest here is allegedly being cleared indiscriminately, believed to be for the development of aquaculture ponds. The location is accessible via a bund road that starts at the Sungai Belanak Fisherman Jetty towards the Permanent Food Production Park (TKPM). Machineries were spotted at the site recently to clear the 0.9ha mangrove forest and level the muddy soil. Checks by NSTP at the area today showed the entrance had been cordoned off with a black trawler net. Next to it was a shrimp pond, which has been in operations for the past five years Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) president S.M. Mohamed Idris urged the Penang government, the Seberang Prai Municipal Council, the Drainage and Irrigation Department, state Forestry Department and the Seberang Prai Tengah Land and District Office to investigate the destruction of mangrove forest in the area. “In a survey along the bund road in Juru, Bukit Tengah recently, we were shocked to see machinery used to clear the mangrove forest and the muddy soil being leveled while being observed by several individuals there. READ MORE New Oil Spill Devastates Borneo Coastline  BORNEO - A state of emergency has been declared after a huge oil spill occurred near the port city of Balikpapan in East Kalimantan, Borneo. Five people have died and an 80km oil slick now covers much of Balikpapan Bay as the cleanup operation begins to reduce the massive environmental damage that this has caused. But just how did something like this happen? Although originally denying it for five days, the state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina finally came forward accepting responsibility. It’s believed that a pipeline in Balikpapan Bay owned by Pertamina was hit as a coal ship dropped its anchor on the pipeline and subsequently dragged it approximately 100m, tearing the pipeline apart. As oil spilt out of the pipeline, Pertamina continued to deny any responsibility for the spill instead insisting that it was marine oil released from ships visiting the port. However, as the slick grew in size, Pertamina was pressured to take responsibility and begin cleaning up the oil that had poured out of its pipeline. READ MORE Sri Lanka project wins climate award  SRI LANKA - Seacology’s program to protect all of the mangrove forests in Sri Lanka continues to receive international accolades. The project just won a United Nations-sponsored 2018 Momentum For Change award for its innovative solution to a changing climate. It is one of 15 winners worldwide, dubbed “Lighthouse Activities” spearheaded by NGOs, governments, public utilities, and business leaders from around the world. It was one of four winners in the “planetary health” category. “These activities shine a light on scalable climate action around the world,” said Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change, who presented Seacology’s Duane Silverstein with the award last month as part of Climate Week in New York City. “They are proof that climate action isn’t only possible, it’s innovative, it’s exciting and it makes a difference.” We’re honored to have our largest and most ambitious project recognized by the international community at such a high level. READ MORE AMERICAS Mangrove Restoration Potential: Mapping Ocean Wealth  USA - The Nature Conservancy has partnered with IUCN to develop a global model and map of mangrove restoration potential to help practitioners prioritize areas, and as a way to support and encourage mangrove restoration projects globally. The model incorporates information on both current and historic distribution of mangrove forests, as well as local drivers of mangrove loss and degradation (e.g., urbanization and industrial development, conversion to agriculture and aquaculture ponds, deforestation for fuelwood or timber, altered freshwater regimes, pollution and coastal erosion), which can vary in extent and severity depending on the region. Environmental (e.g., wave energy, tides) and social factors (e.g., population density, demographics), as well as future projections of sea level rise, urbanization, and weather events are other factors that can influence restoration suitability and will also be incorporated into the model where possible. READ MORE Rising Temperatures Are Causing Soil to Dump More Carbon Dioxide Into the Air  USA - Nature is breathing. Trees inhale carbon dioxide and store that carbon in their leaves and branches. After they die, microbes in the soil gobble up their carbon-rich leftovers and exhale carbon dioxide back into the air, a process known as respiration. Rising temperatures are causing both processes to go faster. But — in an unexpected new finding — the two aren’t speeding up at the same rate. The microbes are working harder than the plants. The Earth, essentially, is panting. “Soils around the globe are responding to a warming climate, which in turn converts more carbon into carbon dioxide, which enters the atmosphere,” said Ben Bond-Lamberty, a researcher with the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a partnership between the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland. “Climate change is nudging up the temperature under which soils and ecosystems operate, with effects that are both predictable — such as faster activity — and uncertain — that is, microbial and plant communities might change.” READ MORE Yucatan to coordinate efforts to take care of the mangrove  MEXICO - Having as main objective the care and preservation of the mangrove in the municipal head and police stations, the H. Ayuntamiento that presides over the Mayor Julián Zacarías Curi, through the Direction of Ecology, seeks to establish contact with the Federal Procurator for Environmental Protection in Yucatan to begin to perform actions. “There is a lot of work to be done, especially in Chicxulub, where residents are willing to create a voluntary surveillance group in order to sue those who invade these natural areas,” said Andrei Narváez Denis, Deputy Director of the Progreso Ayuntamiento. Also, the official said that the rapprochement between the federal agency and the municipal government has already been sought, however, the state authorities in charge have not been able to undertake the actions proposed by the City Council of Progreso. READ MORE LAST WORD Really sorry to hear the passing away news of Robin Lewis. We all together in Vijayawada in 2005 during the EMR training workshop and later to the field trip. His contributions to the coastal ecosystems, particularly cost effective restoration will be remembered for many more years. As you said correctly conserving the fragile ecosystem by our group is a great tribute to the departed soul. Heartfelt condolences to the near and dear to Lewis R. Ramasubramanian R.Ramasubramanian Principal Co-ordinator- Coastal Systems Research, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation 21-244-1, Noble Colony, Machilipatnam 521 001 Andhra Pradesh Ph: +91-8672-226604 (off) Mobile +91-9440314604 Email: rramasubramani@rediffmail.com |
ACTION ALERTMaking the case for Emergency Climate Change ActionSaveMaldives
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