Rome – The world is making progress in the direction of ending the lack of mangrove forests, in keeping with a brand new report from the Meals and Agriculture Group of the United Nations (FAO).
Discovered on the coastlines of 123 international locations worldwide, over 20 p.c of mangroves are estimated to have been misplaced globally over the previous 40 years, primarily as a consequence of each human actions and pure retraction.
The World’s Mangroves, 2000–2020, launched at this time on the Worldwide Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem, reviews that the entire international space of mangroves in 2020 stood at 14.8 million hectares.
However whereas 677,000 hectares of mangroves had been misplaced between 2000 and 2020, the speed at which they’re disappearing fell by virtually 1 / 4 (23 p.c) within the second decade, in keeping with the report.
The examine additionally reveals that mangroves, not like different forests, can unfold very quick given the prospect.
Some 393,000 hectares of recent mangrove forests – an space equal to 550,000 soccer pitches – have grown in areas the place they weren’t current in 2000, offsetting greater than half of the worldwide loss within the final 20 years.
Asia, which hosts virtually half the world’s mangroves, confirmed a 54 p.c lower in mangrove space internet loss within the final twenty years. Internet loss additionally decreased in Africa, whereas North and Central America reversed the pattern and recorded a mangrove space internet achieve between 2010 and 2020. Will increase in internet loss had been reported in South America and Oceania in the identical interval, nonetheless.
“This new examine reveals constructive steps international locations are taking in the direction of slowing the lack of mangroves, but in addition underlines that we should proceed to prioritize their restoration, sustainable use and conservation to safeguard their important providers for folks and the planet,” stated Zhimin Wu, Director of FAO’s Forestry Division.
“Mangroves have an important function to play in serving to obtain the Sustainable Growth Targets, offering meals and livelihoods for coastal communities, defending our coastlines in opposition to pure disasters, storing carbon, mitigating local weather change, and harbouring a unprecedented vary of biodiversity,” he added.
Drivers of loss and achieve in mangrove areas
Offering among the most detailed data but on what is going on to the world’s mangroves, the FAO examine mixed distant sensing satellite tv for pc imagery and native professional data to gather and analyse knowledge throughout 5 areas over the 20-year interval, together with on the drivers of mangrove loss.
Whereas most aquaculture practices don’t have an effect on mangroves, pond shrimp aquaculture, one of many principal causes of mangrove loss, went from inflicting 31 p.c of all loss between 2000 and 2010 to 21 p.c between 2010 and 2020, in keeping with the report.
Pure retraction was the second most vital driver of mangrove loss, inflicting 26 p.c of loss over the 20-year interval, no less than partly attributable to intensifying impacts of local weather change similar to rising sea ranges and temperatures.
Pure disasters accounted for under 2 p.c of all loss over the 20-year interval. Nevertheless, the realm they destroyed elevated threefold and is predicted to worsen, the report warns, leaving coastal communities much more susceptible to storm surges, floods and tsunamis.
When it comes to drivers of mangrove space achieve, pure growth accounted for 82 p.c of all of the features in mangrove space over the twenty years, and restoration for the remaining 18 p.c.
Constructing on progress made
The findings of the examine will assist inform extra focused methods for ending mangrove loss in numerous elements of the world.
The publication recommends that efforts to handle land-use drivers of mangrove loss ought to proceed, directing agricultural improvement to preserve remaining mangrove forests and selling their sustainable use in addition to livelihood help for coastal communities.
Precedence must also be given to mangroves in restoration initiatives, which ought to concentrate on creating conducive circumstances for mangroves to naturally colonize appropriate habitats, leveraging and contributing to the UN Decade Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030.
And as mangroves are among the many most carbon-rich ecosystems on Earth, storing an estimated 6.23 gigatonnes of carbon worldwide of their biomass and soils, they need to even be additional emphasised in local weather mitigation methods, in keeping with the publication.
The report might be formally launched later at this time at a joint FAO-UNESCO celebration of Worldwide Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem on the sixth Worldwide Mangrove Macrobenthos and Administration Convention in Cartagena, Colombia.
Report
