- Mangrove forests are important coastal ecosystems worldwide, and many areas that have suffered loss of these trees are the focus of restoration projects, but these suffer from a 70% failure rate.
- Not only are they key habitats for numerous organisms from crabs to fish and birds, they also supply a wealth of seafood for local communities.
- That makes community involvement a key aspect of the Community-Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration (CBEMR) method, which focuses on improving local hydrology and topography while removing or reducing mangrove stressors, and encouraging the trees’ natural regeneration.
- This article is an analysis. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
The intrinsic value of mangroves and their related coastal ecosystems is getting more recognition than ever before, while actions to conserve and restore our planet’s coastal wetlands are gaining in scope and momentum. More funders are jumping on the bandwagon and supporting restoration efforts around the globe as they take on new significance.
Yet, though there are a great number of mangrove restoration projects out there, there is still a 70% or more failure rate, which cannot be ignored. There is a great need today to raise awareness among those attempting mangrove restoration — and those funders who seek to support the same — that there must be a change in emphasis, from numbers of mangrove trees planted and numbers that survive — not just for a month, or even just one year, but survive for over 10-25 years, i.e. the long-term.
If we are serious in our attempts to restore the mangroves, then we must incorporate a set of best practices. These must include involving local communities in the long-term effort to conserve, restore and co-manage the mangroves in their areas. What follows is a case where local communities and their supporting local NGOs have successfully undertaken such an approach.
“The first thing we learn here is to appreciate what we have. What I remember about mangroves when I was a child is that mangroves went through a time when they were degraded and things weren’t the same. Our experience here is that it is important to protect this. If you take care of something, it will grow and flourish. But it depends on how you care for it.” — Jose Manuel González, wetland ranger, Las Mesitas, El Salvador.
The most extensive remaining mangrove forest in Central America is located in Jiquilisco Bay, El Salvador. The whole bay complex covers 63,200 hectares (156,200 acres), making it El Salvador’s largest wetland. Within this area is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve of 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) which was also designated as a notable site by the Ramsar Convention, the international agreement on wetland conservation.
In a country that has lost 60% of its overall forest cover since 1950, various threats to this specific mangrove forest wetland come from upstream flooding along the Lempa River, uncontrolled tourism development, and large-scale agricultural development. But the most significant challenge in the Jiquilisco Bay mangrove forest is local overexploitation of natural resources by impoverished rural communities living within this fragile landscape. The majority of these 100-odd communities of over 6,000 families in the biosphere reserve rely primarily on the various natural resources of this wetland for their livelihoods, like harvesting wood for various uses, and collecting marine creatures. These activities often degrade the forests and deplete their biodiversity. Otherwise, this population subsists on small-scale agriculture. Nearly 45% of these rural households live in poverty, while a third of these families suffer from extreme poverty, surviving on less than $2 a day.
Within the area of Jiquilisco Bay, approximately 200 hectares (500 acres) of mangrove forest are considered to be degraded already, while the remaining area of approximately 1,800 hectares (4,500 acres) is under pressure from the aforementioned issues.
Encouraged by domestic NGOs such as Asociación Mangle (AM), community leaders have started to address local issues such as environmental degradation, lack of basic infrastructure, and limited disaster preparedness. But due to the scale and complexity of the task, these local organizations, communities and Ministry of Environment (MARN) need significant additional input and capacity building to repair damage to the mangroves and environment, while raising sustainability and quality of life of the reserve’s inhabitants. For this purpose, in 2011 we at the Mangrove Action Project (MAP) introduced the principles of Community Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration (CBEMR) to national authorities at MARN and Fondo de Inversión Ambiental de El Salvador (FIAES), plus NGOs like AM, via a workshop geared to the needs of local mangrove restoration practitioners.
A different approach was needed because mangrove restoration is much more difficult than restoration aimed at terrestrial forests. Many mangrove restoration projects fail to achieve their objectives as projects move straight into nursery development and planting without understanding reasons for mangrove losses, local stressors, or why there is no natural regeneration. Additionally, poor site choice and site/species matching also lead to poor outcomes. If planting succeeds, it often resembles terrestrial plantation development for production forestry with very few species employed.
The focus of AM’s work in Jiquilisco Bay involves 12 villages in three regions (see map above) of the area, with emphasis on capacity building and training in mangrove conservation and management, while also supporting the conservation and protection of the whole 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of the reserve’s mangroves and associated fauna. The overarching aim was to greatly improve and conserve the reserve’s ecological integrity and nearby mangrove regions to facilitate the restoration of the degraded areas. Another important objective was to enhance the sustainability and quality of the lives of local community members by delivering the capacity building and support required for local groups and communities to implement the necessary activities and changes.
Activating local wisdom and community involvement
Community involvement in mangrove conservation and restoration is imperative, though too often it’s not clearly understood by those outside the communities. For one thing, local communities have what is termed local wisdom or local knowledge, and it is this that we need to recognize and engender in our approach to ensuring effective community involvement in conserving and restoring mangroves.
Also, there is a need to better define what community involvement may look like when assessing the effectiveness of joint efforts by local communities and their associated partners in government, academia and/or NGOs who work with local stakeholder communities.
First, we must recognize these communities as local stakeholders, meaning they have an intimate and personal investment in terms of traditions, livelihoods, and community and family in the surrounding coastal ecosystems in which they reside. Second, what is called local knowledge needs further clarification.
Though local communities possess local knowledge, this may not necessarily mean they have a nascent understanding and consequent expertise in restoring degraded or destroyed mangrove areas. Their knowledge might apply mainly to understanding how their nearby mangroves provide certain vital community services and benefits, such as enhanced livelihoods from marine fisheries and protection from storm surges, winds and coastal erosion, all of which can pose serious threats to community life and livelihoods.
This recognition of the importance of mangroves to local communities is an essential step in any program aiming to conserve and restore mangroves. Such local awareness is important in ensuring local community involvement or “buy-in” is present over the long term.
For more visuals, watch this short video about the Jiquilisco Bay mangrove restoration project:
Local wisdom and scientific knowledge, a winning combination
“For us, the importance of the bay and the mangrove forest is that it is home to many of the species that we depend on to survive. The mangrove forests also purify our air. That’s important for us, for my family and the community, that we have a healthy forest, and a healthy life. It’s essential to keep conserving the forest as a living buffer.” — Giovanni Díaz, community leader, Montecristo Isla.
So, even with such awareness present, local knowledge may not be sufficient in ensuring that local communities have the skills to take effective action in conserving and managing their mangroves.
Large-scale loss of mangroves is a relatively recent calamity, caused by escalating drivers such as shrimp farming, oil palm plantations, charcoal production, urban and agricultural expansion, and tourism. Local, traditional and Indigenous communities may not have had the need in the recent past to restore their nearby mangrove forests, because levels of mangrove clearing were relatively minor and usually not permanent. Often, natural mangrove recovery occurred with little or no human intervention. Only in the last 50-60 years has mangrove destruction been so rapid and complete that effective remedial interventions are required.
Because traditional local knowledge may not suffice to meet this relatively recent challenge, this is where MAP’s CBEMR approach enters the bigger picture. CBEMR is a holistic, “best practices” method that combines decades of field experience with current scientific understanding of how mangrove ecology works. CBEMR encourages natural regeneration of mangroves by restoring and improving local hydrology and topography, while removing or reducing those stressors affecting mangroves. CBEMR encourages natural regeneration, thus avoiding lost time and expenses from developing a nursery and planting nursery raised seedlings. It also facilitates increases in site biodiversity and helps bring back the full complement of mangrove ecosystem goods and services.
Bringing CBEMR to Jiquilisco Bay
In 2010, MAP was invited by U.S.-based NGO EcoViva to visit Jiquilisco Bay to assess existing efforts by local community members who were struggling with mangrove loss while having little success in initiating effective mangrove recovery. As MAP’s representative, I visited several sites where large-scale mangrove die-offs were evident. At one site, standing water indicated blockage of drainage channels, resulting in drowned mangroves. At another site, one community member spoke of his frustrations due to several failed attempts to plant mangrove propagules. He was anxious to learn what he had been doing wrong. Mangroves that grew healthily and abundantly just behind the mudflat seemed unable to take root and thrive where he tried planting.
This young man was a traditional fisherman whose livelihood supported his family, and he knew that mangroves played a vital role in sustaining the marine fishery. Via local wisdom he knew the intrinsic value of their restoration and the positive effect this would have on his livelihood, which was suffering due to the decline of the wetlands. He was eager to learn why his attempts at planting mangrove seedlings were not successful.
The first CBEMR regional training took place in 2011 and the challenge was to find root causes of hydrological blockage, then determine what could be done to correct the problem of large-scale mangrove die-off in areas around El Lloron within the biosphere reserve. An initial assessment of the situation affirmed that the problem stemmed from hydrological blockage of streams and channels that normally drained the mangroves, due to sediment and debris buildups in the waterways.
MAP conducted a three-day workshop for around 35 participants, including local community members, academics and government officials, discussing principles of CBEMR, along with field visits to mangrove die-off sites. During training, attention was given to mangrove ecology issues, as this was seen as lacking in many places where restoration attempts were occurring. Wading knee deep in the flooded wetlands, a clearer perspective was gained on the situation for the mangroves of the Jiquilisco Reserve. Waterlogging was preventing oxygen from entering mangrove soils, thus causing die-offs and necessitating hydrological restoration to correct the problem.
After the training workshop, the real challenge was the work needed to remove materials blocking existing waterways to restore tidal exchange and healthy hydrological function. Well-coordinated manual labor, along with careful site assessment to learn layout of existing channels was called for, and in this capacity local communities working with AM were prepared. Organized work parties from several communities participated enthusiastically, putting what they learned to immediate and effective use, dredging 4.2 kilometers (2.6 miles) of clogged waterways by hand, using shovels, axes and chain saws to remove tons of debris and sediments that were causing the mangrove die-off.
After several months of concerted effort, the reopened channels allowed the standing water to drain from oversaturated soils, resulting in rapid mangrove recovery over the next several years. The success of this community-driven project is inspiring. Costs were kept low as labor was done by residents who felt empowered by their concerted efforts, and the results have paid off multifold, as over 70 hectares (173 acres) of mangroves were restored.
Further die-off of the mangroves halted after standing water retreated, and new mangrove seedlings began sprouting while fish and shellfish populations, that had declined when the waterways were blocked, returned. Red snapper, catfish, bass, crabs and shrimp are among the species observed returning to the waters of the restored site.
Local wisdom and dedication to the process of recovery via labor and commitment to the objectives paid off in the end. At last report, Jose Maria Argueta of AM confirmed that the work of cleaning an additional 2 km (1.2 mi) of channels at El Rico and digging about 0.5 km (0.3 mi) of new channels to recover small degraded areas of mangroves was complete.
Taking responsibility for the ecological issues affecting their communities and families, the 300 or more local residents who participated in the restoration work not only opened up the blocked channels and restored a working hydrology to an otherwise drowning mangrove forest, but also empowered themselves and found their way to a more sustainable way of life.
Using simple tools, these farmers and fishers became active stewards of their lands and natural resources, including the mangroves.
Alfredo Quarto is program and policy director of the Mangrove Action Project. Learn more about their CBEMR technique here.
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How are mangrove restoration projects doing? Interview with Tom Worthington
