Loss Of Mangrove Forests Contributed To Greater Impact Of Recent Tsunami

Alfredo Quarto is the executive director of the Mangrove Action Project at their international office in Port Angeles, Washington.

The severity of the recent tsunami disaster is beyond comprehension. The tremendous force of the 9.0 earthquake that occurred off the coast of Sumatra caused extremely powerful tsunamis. This fact is soberly understood. Nevertheless, the immense loss in human life and property boggles the mind, and the ongoing reports from the multiple scenes of the disaster are nightmarish.

What is more disturbing is the fact that the severity of this disaster could have been greatly lessened and much loss in human life and suffering could have been averted had healthy mangrove forests, coral reefs, sea grass beds and peatlands been conserved in a healthy state along these same now devastated coastlines.

Instead these vital protective buffers that nature provides against wind and wave had been foolishly degraded or removed for unsustainable developments such as industrial shrimp aquaculture, tourism and urban expansion into these fragile and now quite vulnerable coastal regions.

The Mangrove Action Project (MAP) urgently calls for the re-establishment of a mangrove buffer zone or “greenbelt” along affected or threatened coastal zones in S.E. Asia to avert future such disasters.

Since 1992, the Mangrove Action Project has been opposing unsustainable developments that threaten mangrove forests around the world. Today, over half the world’s mangrove forests have been lost. Less than 16 million hectares remain on coastlines that once were predominantly lined with thick stands of resilient mangroves. As well, offshore waters were once surrounded by protective and productive coral reefs and sea grass beds. These natural buffers protected the landward side, sheltering coastal communities and wildlife from the brunt of storms and waves.

There is ample scientific evidence, for instance, that clearly shows that a 15 meter tsunami wave’s destructive force is greatly dissipated as it passes through intact, healthy coastal zones containing coral, sea grass and mangroves. These “coastal greenbelts of protection” play a vital role in also reducing sedimentation and shoreline erosion. Other important contributions include enhanced wild fisheries and marine life, medicines, fruit, honey, lumber, fuel wood, tannins and aesthetic beauty.

As MAP’s Cofounder and Goldman Environmental Awardee, Mr. Pisit Charnsnah of Yadfon Asssociation in Trang, Thailand states, “The mangrove is the supermarket for the coastal poor.” Unfortunately that free market has been rapidly replaced with another form of man-made enterprise whereby the goods produced are earmarked for export, and the local communities suffer the consequences of reduced wild fisheries and increased threats from natural disasters.

Multilateral agencies and local governments have for too long enthusiastically supported shrimp farming and other export earning projects without paying attention to local social and ecological security.

According to a report from India, “When the tsunami struck India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu on 26 December… areas in Pichavaram and Muthupet with dense mangroves suffered fewer human casualties and less damage to property compared to areas without mangroves….”

Many other such reports have verified this same fact that fewer losses of life and property occurred in mangrove zones, which were more intact. In many places where the devastation was greatest, mangroves were gone.

“We have observed that mangroves often served as a barrier to the fury of water,” says M. S. Swaminathan, so-called father of India’s ‘green revolution,’ and head of the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in Chennai, India.

In October 1999, mangrove forests reduced the impact of a ‘super-cyclone’ that struck Orissa on India’s east coast, killing at least 10,000 people and making 7.5 million homeless. Those human settlements located behind healthy mangrove stands suffered little, if any, losses.

Jeff McNeely, chief scientist of the Switzerland-based World Conservation Union (IUCN), told the Agence France Press news agency that over the past several decades, many mangroves have been cleared for shrimp ponds by entrepreneurs who knew little and cared less as to why the forests should have been saved.

It is a sad fact that national governments have been unable to adequately regulate their industries that have sprouted up along much of the coastlines replacing nature’s buffer zones with unprotected developments. The recent tsunami event has tested this fragile development model and proven it to be quite unsound.

MAP, working in coalition with its partner NGOs and scientific advisors is calling on all aid agencies and governments to back a plan to re-establish protective mangrove greenbelts along those otherwise denuded coastlines which will, if left unprotected, face future such disasters. As sea levels rise, and as hurricane and tsunamis threats mount, extensive mangrove restoration and conservation programs must be supported and undertaken.

However, these should be carefully designed so as to be long-term and effectively implemented, as in the recent past, many millions of dollars in loans and grants have been wasted in poorly designed and engineered endeavors to re-create or restore needed mangrove zones. Mangrove Action Project is looking for responsible partners to undertake this needed, long-term solution to an otherwise impending next natural calamity!

As Pisit Charnsnah of Yadfon prophetically stated nearly a decade ago, “Mangroves protect the people who protect the mangroves!”

MAP, P.O. Box 1854, Port Angeles, WA 98362

(360) 452-5866 — mangroveap@olympus.net

http://www.earthisland.org/map.

Thailand: Jim Enright, MAP/S.E. Asia at mapasia@loxinfo.co.th

Indonesia: Ben Brown at indo@dps.centrin.net.id

Caribbean: Martin Keeley at mangrove@candw.ky.