A sobering global assessment reveals that half of all the world’s vital mangrove forest ecosystems are at risk of collapse.
A tangled mass of semi-exposed roots and tightly bunched trees rise up out of the naturally dark waters of a mangrove forest. Fish navigate through the maze doing their best to avoid the glare of hungry birds watching and waiting in the trees above. Mud skippers, looking like a cross between a fish and a salamander, haul themselves out onto damp muddy banks. A troop of monkeys causes chaos as it smashes through the canopy, and below, half hidden by the shade, a huge crocodile waits for its moment.
The world’s mangrove forests, which occur on tropical coastlines the world over, are one of the most diverse, important and resource-rich habitats on Earth. Mangrove swamps are home to a bizarre cast of animals, including some rather unexpected species such as man-eating tigers in the Sundarbans (the world’s largest mangrove swamp) of Bangladesh and India, whale sharks, proboscis monkeys with their massive noses, fishing cats and prehistoric-looking horseshoe crabs.
Mangroves are also key fish nurseries without which fish stocks would likely diminish massively. It’s even been estimated that 80 per cent of the global fish catch relies on mangrove forests either directly or indirectly. They also help human-kind in other ways. Mangrove swamps are vitally important carbon sinks, storing four times more carbon than any other type of tropical forest; they act as natural – and highly effective – protection against flooding and erosion and they help improve and maintain local water quality. So, it’s clear that a world without mangrove forests would be a sadly diminished planet.
But, we might have to start adapting to a world without mangroves if a recent assessment conducted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Ecosystems is correct. The report, which makes sobering reading, says that more than half of the world’s mangrove ecosystems are at risk of collapse (classed as either Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered) by the year 2050.
Of this, nearly 20 per cent of the assessed mangroves are considered at severe risk of collapse with the mangroves of southern India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives being the most endangered. In other countries the damage has already been done with Thailand thought to have already lost 84 per cent of its mangroves.
Mangroves are threatened from multiple angles. Deforestation, development, pollution, and dam construction, are all big causes of mangrove forest destruction. However, two of the industries most destructive of mangrove forests are shrimp farming and coastal tourism.
Another, growing, risk to these ecosystems is from sea-level rise and the increased frequency of severe storms associated with climate change. The assessment team concluded that climate change is thought to threaten one-third of the assessed mangrove ecosystems.Â
‘Mangrove ecosystems are exceptional in their ability to provide essential services to people, including coastal disaster risk reduction, carbon storage and sequestration, and support for fisheries’, said Angela Andrade, Chair of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management. ‘Their loss stands to be disastrous for nature and people across the globe. That is why this assessment is so important. The Red List of Ecosystems provides clear pathways on how we can reverse mangrove loss and protect these delicate ecosystems for the future, helping in turn to safeguard biodiversity, tackle the effects of climate change and support the realisation of the Global Biodiversity Framework.’
According to the assessment, without significant changes by 2050, climate change and sea level rise will result in the loss of:
- 1.8 billion tonnes of carbon stored (17 per cent of the total current carbon stored in mangroves).
- Protection for 2.1 million lives exposed to coastal flooding and $36 billion worth in protection to properties
- 17 million days of fishing effort per year.
The assessment claims that maintaining mangrove ecosystems across the globe will be key for mitigating the impacts of climate change. The reason for this is because the muddy soil that mangroves live in is extremely carbon-rich and over time the mangroves help to not only add to this store of soil by capturing sediment but hold it—and the carbon—in place.
This makes mangroves a nature-based solution to a man-made problem. In addition, a coastline backed with healthy mangroves is likely to be better able to cope with sea level rise and offer protection from the impacts of hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones.Â
‘IUCN’s Red List of Ecosystems is key to tracking progress towards the goal of halting and reversing biodiversity loss, in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’, said Dr Grethel Aguilar, the IUCN Director General. ‘The first global assessment of mangrove ecosystems gives key guidance that highlights the urgent need for coordinated conservation of mangroves – crucial habitats for millions in vulnerable communities worldwide.
‘The assessment’s findings will help us work together to restore the mangrove forests that we have lost and protect the ones we still have.’
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