Decades Gone: Bringing Mangroves Back From the Brink
Since 2010, mangrove forests around the world have been regenerated.
A recent collaborative study by an international team of scientists has found that since 2010, mangroves worldwide have been naturally regrowing at twice the rate at which they are being destroyed.
In this era of climate change, as the world trembles under one natural disaster after another, environmental scientists have delivered a piece of wonderfully hopeful news. Overcoming the wounds inflicted by decades of human greed—indiscriminate tree felling for shrimp farming and housing development—the world's coastal mangrove forests are now miraculously recovering on their own.
Since 2010, mangroves worldwide have been naturally regrowing at twice the rate at which they are being destroyed.
In this era of climate change, as the world trembles under one natural disaster after another, environmental scientists have delivered a piece of wonderfully hopeful news. Overcoming the wounds inflicted by decades of human greed—indiscriminate tree felling for shrimp farming and housing development—the world's coastal mangrove forests are now miraculously recovering on their own. A recent collaborative study by an international team of scientists has found that since 2010, mangroves worldwide have been naturally regrowing at twice the rate at which they are being destroyed.
After cyclones and other extreme weather events, many people have become more aware of the crucial role mangroves play in protecting coastlines.
These saline forests, which include the likes of our own Sundarbans, are known as the planet's "natural walls." Researchers say that the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar in 2008, opened the eyes of ordinary people and world leaders alike. It was observed that on islands or coastlines with dense mangrove forests, even when tsunami waves struck, the damage was minimal. Since then, mangrove-rich countries like Indonesia and Myanmar have enacted strict laws to halt deforestation, and the benefits are now being reaped.
According to scientists, a mangrove forest can absorb and lock away approximately five times more toxic carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere than the Amazon or our ordinary forests. That's not all; their tangled, specialized breathing roots (pneumatophores) beneath the soil reduce the force of monstrous ocean waves, thereby protecting the lives and property of millions of coastal people. At the same time, these roots serve as the safest "nursery" for billions of fish, crabs, and marine life to be born and take shelter in the South.
Since 2010, mangrove forests have naturally expanded at a significant rate in many coastal areas. The lead researcher, Dr. Jen Zhang from Tulane University in the USA, told BBC News that using precise 3D technology from NASA's 'Landsat Satellite,' they have observed that since 1980, the densest part of the forest—the 'closed canopy' (the thick leaf cover that prevents seeing the sky)—has increased by nearly 20%. This means that not only is the forest growing in area, but its health is also becoming much stronger than before. If humans simply stop cutting down trees, this forest can naturally heal its own wounds—a unique power of nature.
Despite this good news about mangrove forests in most parts of the world, the picture remains dark in some areas. Especially in the Niger Delta of West Africa, due to the installation of mineral oil pipelines and oil seepage, miles and miles of mangrove forests are being poisoned and destroyed. Furthermore, due to climate change, forests in Australia and the Caribbean region are facing severe damage from frequent and powerful cyclones or typhoons.
This global triumph of mangroves is a hugely positive message for Bangladesh. If we can also implement stricter legal measures to protect our Sundarbans, which has protected Bangladesh like a mother from one super cyclone after another—Sidr, Aila, or Amphan—and do not disturb its natural regeneration capacity, then the Sundarbans can also regain its lost glory. This battle of nature's defiant recovery, thumbing its nose at man-made wounds, proves that if we simply stop destroying nature, nature itself takes on the responsibility of keeping us alive.
