The MAP News
463rd Edition Mar 02, 2019 |
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FEATURE Kibiti and the Rufiji Delta, Tanzania - CBEMR Training TANZANIA - On behalf of Wetlands International Africa, the Mangrove Action Project (MAP) undertook a second two-part training on Community-Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration (CBEMR) for 28 participants in Kibiti and the Rufiji Delta, Tanzania. This involved a five-day, more theoretical workshop (28th Jan – 2nd Feb, 2019) followed by three days of more practical training (3rd – 5th Feb) as a follow-up to the classroom workshop. Jim Enright, Dominic Wodehouse and Jaruwan ‘Ning’ Enright from MAP were the trainers for the participants selected by Wetlands International Africa (WIA), from the Tanzanian Forest Service, local NGOs and community-based organisations (CBOs), as well as representatives from Kenya, Mozambique and Madagascar. This training was part of the capacity building element of WIA’s ‘Mangrove Capital Africa’ program. The hugely important Rufiji Delta has the largest expanse of mangrove forest in East Africa but are still being heavily degraded from agriculture developments for rice and over exploitation for poles and timber. The objectives of the trainings would find sustainable conservation solutions and scenarios for the the declining coastal forests with local communities. READ MORE AFRICA Mangrove forest communities in Rufiji Delta trained on an alternative approach to mangrove restoration. TANZANIA - Mangrove restoration is not just planting one or two mangrove species in straight lines – it’s much more complex than that. To demystify this, together with Mangrove Action Project (MAP), Wetlands International undertook a Community-Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration (CBEMR) training for 28 participants in Kibiti, Rufiji Delta, Tanzania. All too frequently, restoration projects move straight into building a mangrove nursery and planting before understanding the issues related to the project site. These projects often fail. CBEMR supports a holistic, science-based approach that encourages practitioners to mitigate mangrove stressors and facilitate natural mangrove regeneration. This is achieved by working with the local communities to understand all social and technical challenges affecting the restoration site, including site hydrology, soil elevation relative to sea level, pressures on the mangroves and why a site is not naturally regenerating. CBEMR avoids the costs and necessity of building a nursery and planting, as natural regeneration encourages all the species in the locality to find their appropriate sites. CBEMR is an adaptable process, allowing mangrove workers to take on all sorts of different challenges, such as very high salinity in the Saloum Delta, Senegal; grazing pressure in Rakhine State, Myanmar; or encroachment for rice farming within the Rufiji Delta. READ MORE Map of Mangrove Height Reveals Carbon-rich Coastal Forests GABON - Lola Fatoyinbo had studied mangroves -- the nearly impenetrable tangled-trunk forests that fringe warm coastlines worldwide -- for almost a decade, and was pretty sure that the trees topped out around 45 meters high -- roughly the height of the Statue of Liberty without her pedestal. So, when Fatoyinbo, an ecologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, heard in 2011 about mangrove trees in the Central African nation of Gabon that were more than 10 meters taller, she knew she had to visit. Mangroves pack away massive amounts of carbon, both in their woody trunks and in the soil where their roots decay. The trees and soil contain more carbon per acre than tropical rainforests. And because the stored carbon can stay out of the atmosphere for many decades, environmentalists have long hoped that protecting mangrove forests could help slow climate change while the world gets a handle on fossil fuel emissions. Fatoyinbo got a grant to travel to Gabon to gather on-the-ground data about the ability of the mangroves there to store carbon. She and her colleagues hired a motorboat to take them up an estuary into Pongara National Park. Dense, crisscrossing roots emerged from the shallow brown water, which teemed with crabs and fish. READ MORE ASIA Women lead community response to coal plant development, as fishing community faces massive relocation THAILAND - Women in Pattani Province are rising to oppose a planned coal-fired power plant with potentially serious environmental and health impacts for their families and the Pattani Bay community. As plans for the planned Thepha coal-fired power plant move forward, women groups are joining academics, local community members, and environmental and civil society groups in Pattani Bay, southern Thailand, to oppose the plant’s construction. The group is concerned by the threat that the planned plant poses to the bay’s marine resources, which many community members depend on. Women play a significant role in the local fishing industry and rely on Pattani Bay for nutrient-rich foods to feed their families. Lamai Manakarn, an activist from the Pattani Southern Border Province, said that the developers of the planned Thepa coal plan declared “that coal and this coal plant project are clean energy and safe for us.”READ MORE Editors Note: For more on this story, please listen to this podcast featuring MAP Advisor Ian Baird LISTEN HERE Unprecedented wave of new dams could spell disaster far beyond Laos LAOS - The scale of the catastrophe in Laos is still unclear. Dozens could be dead, killed by the man-made flash floods that swept through their villages after the collapse of a dam under construction in Attapeu province in southern Laos. Thousands are homeless, their villages and livelihoods destroyed. It is a tragic reminder of the inherent risks of major dam projects — just as the world finds itself in the middle of a headlong rush for hydropower as countries seek to produce extra energy while reducing carbon emissions. From the Amazon to Zambia, thousands of new hydropower projects are under construction or on the drawing board. Maps show rivers across the Balkans and Himalayas smothered in planned dams. Governments and developers talk excitedly about the energy that could be generated, the jobs created. Meanwhile, risks and costs are invariably downplayed, and community and environmental concerns often disregarded — give or take the usual rhetoric about ‘consultation and impact mitigation’. READ MORE Community Forest Bill won't benefit all, campaigners say THAILAND - The Community Forest Bill aims to give villagers more say in managing natural resources but is too limited in its scope and risks further marginalising those living outside areas covered by the act, land campaigners said on Thursday. The bill, first drafted almost 30 years ago, was approved by the National Legislative Assembly on Friday, according to forestry department officials, and is expected to become law within 180 days. The bill defines community forests as those that sit outside conservation areas managed by the state, and allows villagers living in these forests to use and manage its resources after they have registered their communities with the government. "For the first time, there is legal recognition of the right of local communities to manage their forests, so this is significant," said Warangkana Rattanarat, country director at the Centre for People and Forests (RECOFTC). "But the bill limits community forests to those in reserved forests and not those in conservation areas such as national parks, so it does not benefit all forest-dependent communities," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. READ MORE AMERICAS Saving the World’s Largest Tropical Wetland BRAZIL - Most people have heard of the Amazon, South America’s famed rainforest and hub of biological diversity. Less well known, though no less critical, is the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland. Like the Amazon, the Pantanal is ecologically important and imperiled. Located primarily in Brazil, it also stretches into neighboring Bolivia and Paraguay. Covering an area larger than England at more than 70,000 square miles, the massive wetland provides irreplaceable ecosystem services that include the regulation of floodwaters, nutrient renewal, river flow for navigability, groundwater recharge and carbon sequestration. The wetland also supports the economies of the four South American states it covers. But as I learned working on a recent research project with the environmental nonprofit WWF, a combination of climate change, new development, expanding agriculture, urban growth and pollution are poised to transform this vast wetland — bringing drastic consequences for the environment, wildlife and millions of people who depend on the Pantanal’s natural hydrology. READ MORE How a dead humpback whale ended up in a mangrove forest BRAZIL — When local fishermen were walking through a mangrove forest in Brazil, they came across something that shouldn’t be there: the carcass of a humpback whale. The baby whale was likely lost at sea and died of starvation or some other unknown cause, according to nonprofit research group Bicho D’agua. The tides washed the whale’s body to shore at Araruna Beach in the city of Soure, said Bicho D’agua oceanographer Maura Sousa. It’s located on the island of Marajó, which sits at the mouth of the Amazon River. “During this season, the tide normally rises twice a day to almost 4 meters (13 feet) and floods the mangrove forest, bringing lots of trash, including trash from ships from a lot of places in the world,” Sousa said. READ MORE OCEANA New study finds link between forest conservation and coral reef preservation AUSTRALIA - With over 90 percent of the Great Barrier Reef already damaged, and large percentages of coral reefs worldwide faring the same, the future doesn’t look promising for these stony polyps. Climate change has pervasive impacts on all of Earth’s ecosystems — especially on the coral reefs of the world. It causes ocean warming, which bleaches corals since they can only survive in a small range of temperatures over a long period of time. It also alters precipitation patterns, and that increases the amount of sediment and land-based pollutant runoff into the ocean — another threat to coral reefs. However, scientists are continuing to look for solutions to prevent further loss of reefs and even reverse the negative impacts of climate change on them. One such solution has been proposed by researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the Wildlife Conservation Society who have found a link between forest conservation and coral reef preservation. READ MORE GLOBAL Global action to save mangroves: the Global Mangrove Alliance GLOBAL -In January 2019, mangrove specialists of the Global Mangrove Alliance from all over the world came together to discuss approaches to save the world’s mangroves. Wetlands International was represented involving colleagues from the Philippines, Indonesia, Kenya, Senegal, Panama, and the Global Office. In this blog, I will share my personal experiences and the most important outcomes of the meeting. Mangroves occur along tropical coastlines and are considered one of the most important ecosystems for nature and people. They are havens for biodiversity, provide rich fisheries resources and protect communities against storms and erosion. They also regulate our climate by sequestering and storing large amounts of carbon. However, worldwide mangroves are under threat from large scale infrastructure development and expansion of agriculture and aquaculture. As more and more people live along our coasts these pressures increase rapidly. To save our mangroves for future generations, it is crucial to work together. READ MORE The world’s cities rely on the world’s wetlands. GLOBAL - One half the world’s population live in cities. And, 1.4 million more people flood into our rapidly expanding urban areas every week — energizing their economies, but also straining their services and sustainability. And population increases also result in significant land use change, which often heightens the risk from natural disasters. Today as we mark World Cities Day, Venice — one of the world’s most iconic cities, which has water at its heart — is being swamped by the worst floods in a decade. In recent years, catastrophic floods have hit cities on all continents. Yet, while many cities have experienced flooding, others have faced unprecedented droughts and severe water shortages. Over the past ten years, natural disasters have affected more than 220 million people and caused US$100 billion worth of economic damage per year. Without urgent efforts and significant investment to make cities more resilient, natural disasters — intensified by climate change — could cost cities three times as much by 2030, while devastating the lives of tens of millions more people. READ MORE LAST WORD Dear Reader, We are sending you the “Call for papers” for the June 2019 edition of Nature & Faune journal (Volume 33, Issue 1) on the theme “The central role of biodiversity, protected areas and wildlife in sustainable development of Africa”. Kindly disseminate the attached English version of the “Call for papers” to your network. With regards, Mrs. Ada Ndeso-Atanga Technical Editing & Publications Specialist Nature & Faune Journal RAFT Natural resources – Fisheries – Forestry Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) FAO Regional Office for Africa P.O. Box GP 1628, Accra, Ghana Email: nature-faune@fao.org Email: Ada.Ndesoatanga@fao.org Tel.: +233 (0) 302 610930 Ext. 41605 Cellular phone #: 233-208 175 145 233-277 358 482 233 246 889 567 (also on WhatsApp) Skype: Adayes22 Website : http://www.fao.org/africa/resources/nature-faune/en/ Back to Top |
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Thursday, February 28, 2019
MAP News Issue 463 - March 02, 2019
Saturday, February 16, 2019
MAP News Issue 462 - Feb. 16, 2019
The MAP News
462nd Edition Feb 16, 2019 |
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FEATURE 5 reasons to protect mangrove forests for the future GLOBAL - To the uninitiated, mangroves might appear to be merely coastal cousins of inland forests, but these rich ecosystems support the planet and people in unique ways, from providing breeding grounds for fish to carbon storage, to protection against flooding. Yet despite their importance, mangrove forests are under threat. Over a third have already disappeared, and in regions such as the Americas they are being cleared at a faster rate than tropical rainforests. Much of that clearance is to reclaim land for agriculture, industrial development and infrastructure projects. In addition to climate change and pollution, there are also local threats. These include overharvesting of wood for fuel and construction, dams and irrigation that reduce the flow of water reaching the forests, and overfishing causing disruption to food chains and fish communities. READ MORE AFRICA Chicken Farm Community Joins Fight to Protect Mangrove LIBERIA - A group of community dwellers in Chicken Farm community, Jacob’s Town, outside Monrovia, has joined the fight to protect 35 percent of Liberia’s mangroves along the Mesurado river through sustainable use of the forest. The group of citizens, named “Chicken Farm Neighborhood Dwellers,” has called on the government and its international partners to do more to prevent flooding, sand mining, and the destruction of wildlife. The group also wants government to put an end to the massive destruction of mangroves along the Mesurado river. In a letter addressed to Nathaniel Blama, Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), dated January 30, 2019, a copy of which is in the possession of this writer, the residents complained that some unknown individuals are aggressively destroying mangrove trees for the purpose of selling swampland and fetching wood. The community has repeatedly suffered from property damage as a result of flooding when the Mesurado river overflows. READ MORE Lamu residents decry mangrove logging ban KENYA - Cutting and trading of mangrove trees are now banned in Kenya, but Kenyans warn their houses and mosques may collapse. A ban on the cutting or trading of mangrove trees in Kenya has angered many across the island of Lamu. The government says the decision will help the environment, but residents argue they have no other material to construct and repair their buildings. Residents of Lamu are warning that this ban could lead to their homes and mosques collapsing. A section of Lamu's 300-year-old Jamia Mosque faces imminent collapse. The faithful are now forced to pray on just one side of the mosque. READ MORE Marine conservation gives life to the ocean, boosts livelihoods KENYA - Amina Ahmed Mohammed has watched men prepare fishing gear and take to the waters in Lamu to fend for their families since she was a child. That was until the tide changed. Today, as men sail away to the deep oceans to catch fish, Amina leads her own band of women into the shallow edges of the ocean to catch octopus. And the way nature does it is so befitting to their roles that she has no qualms going about it. While the men take to the waters at the crack of dawn, Amina and her team have to wait for the tide to recede before they begin the long trudge to locate corals where octopus inhabit. Pate Women Group chairlady Arafa Aboud says 80 women are involved in replanting of mangroves. “We educate our children from mangrove products and we must ensure the forests thrive to benefit future generations,” she says. READ MORE ASIA Denmark funds mangrove reforestation in Rakhine MYANMAR - A Five-year plan to replant mangrove forests is being undertaken on the Rakhine State coast with the help of the Danish government, a Forest Department official said. U Toe Aung of the department’s Mangrove Conservation Unit said the five-year project will focus on degraded mangrove forests in Myebon and Rambre townships. It started in June 2018 and will end in 2023. According to the department, mangroves cover 76 percent of Rakhine’s coast, 29pc of the Ayeyarwady delta, and 98pc of Tanintharyi Region in 2015. But conservation experts said many mangroves are being destroyed to breed fish and prawns, and farmland. “Mangrove forests in Sittwe township are now prawn farms. We will replant mangroves in prawn farms that are no longer used,” U Toe Aung said. One problem is that mangroves, forest reserves and protected areas have not been clearly defined, and group-owned forests have not been established in Sittwe, he added. READ MORE Farmers profit from breeding crabs amid mangroves VIETNAM - In early 2017, the association started the model in the district’s Nam Thai Commune after many of the households suffered losses from raising black tiger shrimp, fish and other kinds of crabs in mangrove forests which they were assigned to protect and harvest products. Le Minh Khang, who was allocated 8ha of protective forestry land in Nam Thai in 1992, said after receiving the land, he used 70 per cent of the area to grow mangrove forests and the rest to breed black tiger shrimp, crabs and fish. In the first years, mangrove trees were small and water resources were clean, yielding profits from black tiger shrimp, crabs and fish. However, mangrove trees are now bigger and their fallen leaves pollute water resources, affecting the breeding of the aquatic species in the mangrove forest, according to Khang. READ MORE Mangrove ecosystem's importance not understood MALAYSIA - Mangroves can be found in 118 countries in the world, representing one per cent of the tropical forest worldwide, and less than 0.4 per cent of the world forests. Mangrove swamps provide a very important ecosystem to both human life and the diversity of life that inhabits it. Unfortunately, not many are aware of the importance of the mangrove ecosystem, causing them to be neglected, thus leading to the threat of its extinction. This is evident throughout Malaysia today in which mangroves are becoming increasingly threatened by various unhealthy human activities, such as reclamation of land for aquaculture, agriculture, industry or housing, coastal resort development, ports, roads, airports and oil exploration; widespread logging; and pollution. It was recently reported that the sole surviving mangrove forest on government land located in the middle of Pekan Baru Batu Maung and adjacent to the Bayan Lepas Industrial Park was being threatened by irresponsible dumping of construction and industrial wastes. READ MORE Malaysian Federal Government supports indigenous peoples’ rights MALAYSIA - In what seems to mark a significant shift in government policy, the Malaysian Government has sued the State Government of Kelantan for its alleged failure to protect Orang Asli rights to their lands in violation of the Constitution. The Orang Asli (‘original peoples’) are the indigenous peoples of Peninsular Malaysia. Orang Asli spokespersons have been reported to welcome the decision but have called for legal reforms to secure their customary rights through statutory law. During the British colonial period, the so called ‘aboriginal peoples’ of the Malay Peninsula were tolerated but their rights were never formally recognised. The British sought to encourage the Orang Asli, who lived by hunting and gathering and small-scale shifting cultivation mainly in the forested uplands, to settle down. Small reserves set up for their settlements were gazetted but legally remained Crown lands. READ MORE AMERICA Appeals court clears way for landowner to drill exploratory oil well in Everglades USA - Overturning a decision by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, an appeals court Tuesday ordered the state to issue a permit to a major Broward County landowner who wants to drill an exploratory oil well in the Everglades. A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled the department improperly rejected a recommended order by an administrative law judge, who said in 2017 a permit should be approved for Kanter Real Estate LLC. The 14-page ruling Tuesday said, in part, that Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Noah Valenstein improperly rejected “factual findings” by Administrative Law Judge E. Gary Early. Those findings included that the site targeted for exploratory drilling was environmentally degraded and was isolated from surface water and groundwater. READ MORE Submissions requested to Wildlife Conservation Film Festival USA - Join us for the 9 year anniversary of the WCFF from October 17-27, 2019 in New York, NY. Over 100 documentary films representing many nations will be screened. In attendance will be international filmmakers and scientists. Interested in submitting a film for the 2019 Festival? Contact: info@wcff.org to request a film entry application. Take part in the only film festival on the globe dedicated to wildlife conservation. Our mission is to inform, engage and inspire audiences about the need for and importance of the protection of global biodiversity. READ MORE OCEANA FIGHTING GLOBAL WARMING WITH BLUE CARBON AUSTRALIA - Breathe deeply. All that lovely oxygen you’re getting right now was recycled somewhere by plants (and plankton). But it’s not just the land-based plants responsible for restoring Earth’s oxygen supply—marine plants also play an important role. Mangroves, seagrasses and inhabitants of salt marshes are just some of the plants responsible for creating something called blue carbon. But this important part of underwater ecology looks more brown and green than a pretty aqua hue. It works like this: marine plants capture carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, just like their terrestrial siblings. The plants transform the carbon into carbohydrates, which are then used by the plant to grow stems, leaves and flowers. When the plant dies, the carbon locked in its tissues is trapped, stored underground. Mat Vanderklift, a marine ecologist at CSIRO, says because this trapped carbon is waterlogged, very little oxygen gets to it and it cannot decompose. The carbon can remain trapped much more efficiently than land-based carbon traps, like trees. READ MORE LAST WORD Hello Alfredo & team, On behalf of Save Maldives team and other activists and movements working towards environmental protection and conservation in the Maldives, we would like to extend our gratitude for your continued support to our efforts and work. Since you have mentioned the effectiveness of letter writing in previous emails, I would like to know that it had a huge impact. For example, our friend working as the National Coordinator for Mangroves for the Future (MFF) the Maldives reported that the letter from MAP with concern for Kulhudhuffushi mangroves was discussed in a meeting of the National Coordination Body. It was widely covered by the media and garnered attention on social media and led to subsequent discussions on these platforms as well. READ MORE Back to Top |
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Mangrove Action ProjectClick here to view past newsletters |
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The community of adults and youth in Cayman Islands has come together recently to release a series of educational videos. Each is geared to...
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By: Isabel Robinson, MAP Volunteer Intern Some months ago I decided to come to Thailand and do an internship in mangrove conservation, ...
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J.H. Primavera, Ph.D. Among others, Typhoon Yolanda in 2013 and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami have highlighted the importance of m...
MAP News Issue #594 - March 23, 2024
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