MANGROVE
ALLIANCE FOR CLIMATE - ENVIRONMENT
News: What is the Mangrove Alliance for Climate, which India joined at COP27?
What's
in the news?
●
At the 27th Session of Conference of
Parties (COP27), this year’s UN
climate summit, the Mangrove Alliance
for Climate (MAC) was launched with India as a partner on Tuesday (November
8).
●
The move, in line with India’s goal to
increase its carbon sink, will see New Delhi collaborating with Sri Lanka,
Indonesia and other countries to preserve and restore the mangrove forests in
the region.
● Attending the event in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt on November 8, Union Minister for Environment Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav said that India is home to one of the largest remaining areas of mangroves in the world - the Sundarbans — and has years of expertise in restoration of mangrove cover that can be used to aid global measures in this direction.
Mangrove
Alliance for Climate (MAC):
● An initiative led by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Indonesia, the Mangrove Alliance for Climate (MAC) includes India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Japan, and Spain.
Objective:
● It seeks to educate and spread awareness worldwide on the role of mangroves in curbing global warming and its potential as a solution for climate change.
Voluntary
commitments:
●
However, the intergovernmental alliance
works on a voluntary basis which means that there are no real checks and balances to hold members accountable.
● Instead, the parties will decide their own commitments and deadlines regarding planting and restoring mangroves. The members will also share expertise and support each other in researching, managing and protecting coastal areas.
Go
back to basics:
Mangroves:
●
A Mangrove is a small tree or shrub that
grows along coastlines, taking root in salty sediments, often underwater.
Mangroves are flowering trees,
belonging to the families Rhizophoraceae, Acanthaceae, Lythraceae,
Combretaceae, and Arecaceae.
●
They can survive under extreme hostile environments such as high salt and
low oxygen conditions.
●
Underground tissue of any plant needs
oxygen for respiration. But in a mangrove environment, the oxygen in soil is
limited or nil. Hence the mangrove root system absorbs oxygen from the
atmosphere.
● Mangroves have special roots for this purpose called breathing roots or pneumatophores. These roots have numerous pores through which oxygen enters the underground tissues.
Unique
features:
●
Survival
in Extreme Conditions: With their roots submerged in water,
mangrove trees thrive in hot, muddy, salty conditions that would quickly kill
most plants.
●
Leaves
modification: Mangroves, like desert plants, store
fresh water in thick succulent leaves. A
waxy coating on the leaves seals in water and minimises evaporation.
● Viviparous: Their seeds germinate while still attached to the parent tree. Once germinated, the seedling grows into a propagule.
Mangrove
status - World and India:
●
Mangrove forests occupy around 2,00,000
square kilometres across the globe in tropical regions of 30 countries.
●
India has a total mangrove cover of 4,482
sq km, which is 0.15% of the country’s
total geographical area.
●
Top 5 states with the most mangrove forest
cover in India are:
○
West
Bengal: 2,114 sq km
○
Gujarat: 1,175 sq km
○
Andaman and Nicobar Islands: 616 sq km
○
Andhra Pradesh: 405 sq km
○
Maharashtra: 324 sq km
○ Odisha: 259 sq km
Significance
of Mangrove ecosystem:
1.
Tidal forests:
●
Mangroves are salt-tolerant vegetation that grows in intertidal regions of rivers
and estuaries. They are referred to as ‘tidal
forests’ and belong to the category of ‘tropical wetland rainforest ecosystem’.
2.
Unique habitat:
●
A mangrove ecosystem is the interface between terrestrial forests and
aquatic marine ecosystems. The ecosystem includes diversified habitats like
mangrove-dominant forests, litter-laden forest floors, mudflats, coral reefs
and contiguous water courses such as river estuaries, bays, inter-tidal waters,
channels and backwaters.
●
Mangroves are trees and shrub species that
grow at the interface between land and sea in tropical and subtropical regions
of the world, where the plants exist in conditions of salinity, tidal water
flow and muddy soil.
3.
Ecological niches:
●
The structural complexities of mangrove
vegetation create unique environments which provide ecological niches for a wide variety of organisms.
●
Mangroves serve as breeding, feeding and
nursery grounds for most of the commercial fishes and crustaceans on which
thousands of people depend for their livelihood.
4.
Ecosystem services:
●
Mangroves are an intermediate vegetation
between land and sea that grow in oxygen
deficient waterlogged soils which have Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S). They perform
important ecological functions like nutrient cycling, hydrological regime,
coastal protection, fish-fauna production, etc.
5.
Disaster reduction:
● Mangroves act as shock absorbers. Mangroves give protection to the coastline and minimise disasters due to cyclones and tsunami. Recent studies have shown that mangroves store more carbon dioxide than most other forests. They reduce high tides and waves and help prevent soil erosion. They also provide livelihood opportunities to coastal communities.
Threats
faced by Mangroves:
1.
Development activities:
● Infrastructure projects and industrial expansion and building of roads and railways, and natural processes shifting coastlines, coastal erosion and storms, have resulted in a significant decrease in mangrove habitats. Between 2010 and 2020, around 600 sq km of mangroves were lost of which more than 62% was due to direct human impacts, the Global Mangrove Alliance said in its 2022 report.
2.
Commercial Aquaculture:
●
Shrimp
Farms: The emergence of shrimp farms have caused at least
35% of the overall loss of mangrove forests. The rise of shrimp farming is a
response to the increasing appetite for shrimp in the United States, Europe,
Japan and China in recent decades.
3.
Global warming and Sea level rise:
●
A fluctuation of ten degrees in a short
period of time is enough stress to
damage the plant and freezing temperatures for even a few hours can kill
some mangrove species.
●
Due to global warming, the sea levels are
continuously rising. The rising sea levels have flooded large areas of mangrove forests. This has resulted in their
depletion. This has been supplemented by continuous erosion by sea towards the
land.
4.
Anthropogenic activities:
●
40% of mangroves on the west coast have
been converted into farmlands and other
settlements in just 3 decades.
● Upstream operations such as river training and natural erosion and accretion have an impact on the health of mangroves because the adequate ecological flow in rivers is required to flush silt and other pollutants from the mangroves.
STEPS
TAKEN:
●
The BOBLME
(Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem) project brought together India and
seven other Bay of Bengal region countries to safeguard mangroves. This project
is led by the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization and funded by GEF (Global Environment Facility).
●
In 2013, the Biotechnology Department started a bio-restoration program in pilot
mode in the Sundarbans. It involves stabilisation of degraded mangrove
stretches with native grasses (salt-tolerant varieties). An on-site nursery is
also set up. These nurseries grow a variety of mangrove species- native,
associated, threatened, endangered, etc. 22 species were raised in these
nurseries to maintain diversity.
●
WWF
India and Discovery India are collaborating with government
agencies, civil society organizations, and scientific institutions to help
village panchayats and local people create the capacity to include climate
resilience in their plans.
●
UNESCO
Designated Sites: The inclusion of mangroves in Biosphere
Reserves, World Heritage sites and UNESCO Global Geoparks contributes to
improving the knowledge, management and conservation of mangrove ecosystems
throughout the world.
●
International
Society for Mangrove Ecosystem (ISME): The ISME is a
non-governmental organization established in 1990 to promote the study of
mangroves with the purpose of enhancing their conservation, rational management
and sustainable utilization.
●
Blue
Carbon Initiative: The International Blue Carbon Initiative
is focused on mitigating climate change through the conservation and
restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems. It is coordinated by Conservation International (CI), IUCN, and
the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission-UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO).
●
International
Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem:
UNESCO celebrates this day on July 26
with the aim of raising awareness about mangrove ecosystems and promoting their
sustainable management and conservation.
●
Mangroves
for the Future Initiative: IUCN and UNDP developed a unique
initiative to promote investment in coastal ecosystem conservation called the
“Mangroves for the Future (MFF)”. The member nations include Bangladesh,
Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Pakistan, Seychelles, Sri Lanka,
Thailand, and Vietnam.
●
National
Mangrove Committee: The Government of India set up a National
Mangrove Committee in 1976 which advises the government about the conservation
and development of mangroves.
WAY
FORWARD:
●
People's
involvement in mangrove management on public lands and
related benefits. Several community led programmes need to raise people's
awareness of the importance of mangroves. Example: Through films, exhibitions,
newspapers, magazines, posters, stickers, brochures, banners, seminars, nature
camps, birdwatching, study tours in the mangrove forests, establishment of
mangrove parks in the mangrove areas close to towns, and the celebration of
Mangrove Conservation Day, with essay competitions, debates and drawing
competitions.
●
Offering incentives for sustainable management of mangroves on
private and village community land.
●
Cultural
advantages can be leveraged in mangrove conservation. Eg: Bon
Bibi is a forest goddess worshipped by people of different faiths (Hindus &
Muslims) in the Sundarbans. The Bon Bibi faith checks excessive acquisition and
greed in Sundarbans- people are to enter the forests only when absolutely
necessary (eg: livelihood), people are not to carry weapons into the forests,
smoking in the forest is seen as a desecration, etc.
●
Ensuring strict enforcement of environmental protection laws.
●
Working on restoration and rehabilitation of degraded mangrove areas. Use of
bio-restoration to revive degraded stretches of mangroves. These techniques
help maintain the original biodiversity. Ecological restoration revives the
mangroves at a faster rate than natural regeneration.