Best practice guidelines for mangrove restoration

Healthy mangroves support people, biodiversity, and our climate. Mangroves support the livelihoods and well-being of hundreds of millions of coastal inhabitants around the world, provide food security, sequester and store large quantities of carbon, regulate water quality, and protect the coast.
However, during the last five decades, 20-35% of our mangroves have disappeared. In many parts of the world, mangroves have been converted into fishponds and agricultural areas or have been removed to make way for urban sprawl and coastal development. Remaining mangroves are under threat of degradation from unsustainable exploitation for timber and fuelwood or from infrastructure developments that alter the nutrient, sediment, and water supplies that mangroves depend upon.
In some cases, ground water extraction has caused entire coastal areas to sink, resulting in mangrove loss and coastal erosion. Mangrove degradation and loss has altered the structure and function of valuable coastlines, weakening the ecosystem services mangroves provide and releasing carbon back to the atmosphere in the process.

As nations, institutions, and communities start to feel the impact of losing their mangroves, a major desire and opportunity for restoration is emerging. Of the 1,100,000 hectares (ha) of mangroves that have been lost since 1996, around 818,300 ha of mangroves are considered “restorable” while other areas are considered irretrievably lost to urbanization, erosion, or other causes. While there have been many successful mangrove restoration efforts, some regions still see failure rates of up to 80% due to science-based methods not being followed – most notably poor project planning and lack of local engagement,
reliance on planting in unsuitable areas, or planting without also addressing hydrology, nutrient, and sedimentation requirements. The position of mangroves in the landscape, at the margin of land and sea,
also adds complexity as environmental conditions for mangrove establishment can vary on small spatial scales, and land ownership and management of the area may be unclear. Sometimes restoration may even cause environmental damage when other valuable habitats such as mudflats and seagrass beds are
planted over with mangrove saplings.

The good news is, in recent years, many innovative and successful restoration guidance documents and tools have emerged that advocate for more effective approaches to restoration. Specifically, the most successful way to restore mangroves is to create the right biophysical conditions for mangroves to grow back naturally and the right socioeconomic conditions to incentivize their long-term protection.

source:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/restorasi-mangrove-ugcPost-7426337046153322497-hdj8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAtGGkQBsxwMBmX3lEJO8btihnfBCaHqTz4