Roots of resilience: Restoring mangroves

Yet, while the pace of mangrove loss has slowed, the destruction has not ceased entirely. To acknowledge the ongoing exploitation is also to recognise the tireless efforts of countless individuals and organisations committed to protecting and restoring these essential ecosystems. Below are the stories of four such initiatives.

The breathing roots of a mangrove, known as pneumatophores, are slowly exposed as the tide goes out in Inhambane Bay in Mozambique. ©Jamila Janna

A juvenile mangrove in Inhambane Bay. ©Jamila Janna

A fish trap among the mangroves in Inhambane Bay. ©Jamila Janna

Nestled in the tropical southern African region, the Inhambane Bay community is emblematic of the global south, where communities are particularly vulnerable to climate change, their lives intricately tied to the health of the ocean and mangrove forests. Currently, rising sea surface temperatures are impacting fish stocks and livelihoods. Antonio de Sacramento Cabral, the executive director at Ocean Revolution, a non-profit that is involved in mangrove restoration and rehabilitation activities in the area can be found on the ground overseeing the research work and community events led by Ocean Revolution. The coastline here is not merely lined with palm trees. It boasts mangroves and seagrass meadows that are home to the last-known viable population of dugong—a critically endangered manatee-like marine mammal—on Africa’s east coast.

Antonio admits that they find themselves in a precarious position, nervously bracing for further climate events. Recognising the critical role of mangroves and the threats posed by climate change, Ocean Revolution has collaborated with the Mozambican government and local communities to confront these challenges head-on. “Mangroves are essential for maintaining sustainable fisheries, and the impact of their restoration benefits livelihoods as well,” Cabral explains. “The restoration is part of the national agenda to mitigate climate change, involving the active planting of local mangrove trees in areas where they have been depleted.”

The success of this programme relies on trust and robust collaboration, ensuring that communities understand the impact healthy mangroves have on their lives while the government addresses gaps by providing necessary resources. Acting as a bridge, Ocean Revolution connects stakeholders at all levels.

A local fisherman in Inhambane Bay, Mozambique. ©Jamila Janna

Executive director at Ocean Revolution, Antonio de Sacramento Cabral (centre) accompanied by a teammate to his right and the president of the community fishing forum on the left. ©Jamila Janna

Flag marking where protected area starts in Morrumbene. ©Jamila Janna

Although their restoration efforts began relatively recently, in 2020, 3,000 hectares have been restored in the bay since then—with over 10,000 hectares restored throughout Inhambane Province. Cabral claims that the community, young and old, actively participates in this initiative, spurred on by awareness campaigns through community talks, TV shows, and radio broadcasts.

“Communities play a vital role here. Their commitment is evident in that they are not participating because they are told to, but because they truly value the environment and all that it provides for them. Without them, this would not be successful,” says Cabral.

In the South China Sea, Malaysia embraces a technological approach to mangrove restoration and rehabilitation. The Ericsson’s Connected Mangroves project in Selangor utilises technology to bolster their rehabilitation efforts in light of increasingly frequent climatic events. Before the introduction of sensors that gather data on soil pH and salinity levels, the survival rate of mangrove saplings was dismally low. Now, that rate has soared to 85% between 2015 and 2022. These sensors relay data to a cloud server, where stakeholders can access vital information to understand the triggers of sapling mortality. As more data is collected, the parameters are continuously refined. When thresholds are reached, caretakers receive alerts to manage conditions for the saplings. This project involves local communities and regional NGOs, seeking strong collaboration and knowledge-sharing.

Often, the success of afforestation efforts hinge on very practical benefits to the community. Habitations across the coastal belt of the Bengal delta are protected by a network of embankments which keep the rivers out during the high tide. Without these embankments, communities would find their villages and homes submerged in salty water twice a day.

And this is exactly what happens when the embankments are breached during cyclones or storm surges. Protapnagar, a region in the Satkhira district of Bangladesh, had floods for nine months in the aftermath of Cyclone Amphan that hit in May 2020, during the Covid-19 crisis. The salinisation, floods and waterlogging destroyed fish farms, crops, and entire landscapes. Similar events had happened in other nearby regions including Gabura and Padmapukur over the years.

A community caretaker tends a mangrove sapling at Friendship's mangrove nursery in Protapnagar, Satkhira, in Southern Bangladesh. ©KM Asad/Friendship

Friendship's mangrove nursery in Protapnagar, photographed in 2024. ©Shafiul Islam Razu/Friendship

The same nursery, photographed in 2022. ©KM Asad/Friendship

Today, many organisations are promoting the use of mangroves for the protection of embankments. In 2017, Friendship, a national Bangladeshi NGO, developed a model where they would plant mangroves on the mudflats between the river and the embankments. They worked with local communities to sensitise them and gain support for the project, address any concerns, and to train and employ caretakers.

In Satkhira, one often encounters mangroves naturally growing on mudflats adjacent to embankments. But new mangroves fail to develop because saplings don’t often survive being eaten by hungry goats. So the plantations needed to be protected with fences. The livestock weren’t deprived for long, because it turned out that alongside mangroves, grass also flourished, protected by the fences. The caretakers would allow the villagers to cut the grass to feed their cows and goats. The idea was that eventually the mature plantations would also yield fruits, firewood, crabs, fish and honey while fortifying the embankments.

Based in Tanzania, the Aqua-Farms Organisation (AFO) aims to restore mangroves and establish a carbon credit market where the carbon credits that are generated from the project will be sold and used to fund future project work. Currently, because their projects are in their infancy, they are funded by donors and grants which are enabling them to work towards seeing the benefits from their efforts. The benefits include an increase in biodiversity, enhanced coastal resilience, and sustainable income for local communities. AFO’s journey began in 2016. By 2021, they had planted 80,000 mangrove trees across 7 hectares in just one village.

Newly planted saplings. ©AFO

Beekeeping setup installed in Kunduchi forest. ©AFO

Community collaboration is a vital component of their work, says co-founder Alex Mafuru, who serves as the Blue Carbon projects coordinator based in Dar es Salaam. “We needed to understand the perceptions that might arise during the implementation of this blue carbon project. It was essential to grasp how dependent on the mangroves the community was as a way to ascertain what the alternative livelihoods would be to reduce the pressure on the ecosystem. Some of the community members were cutting mangroves illegally as a way to earn income. We asked questions like, ‘What would you like to do? Beekeeping? Tourism? Something like a guided walk in the mangroves? Perhaps a small business?’ The answer depended on the community’s perspectives on the alternatives as each community is unique.”

AFO also uses carbon stock surveys and socio-economic studies to identify issues that may arise from overexploiting mangroves such as loss of fish diversity, reduced availability of beehives for honey, vulnerability to coastal erosion and storm surges, and loss of income. They then discuss their concerns with the communities, to nurture a sense of ownership over the project. Alex provided an example of this process by explaining that salt miners now train the community to harvest salt legally. The training includes guiding the community on how not to have the activities encroach beyond the designated areas, which are demarcated in a spatial plan. This approach allows community members to earn an income while safeguarding the forest and reducing any further degradation. The impact of AFO’s work extends beyond the trees, with over 240,000 seedlings planted in total, 1,000 hectares restored across the ten communities they work with.

Mangroves occur in tropical coastal areas, which mostly happen to be in developing economies. Mangroves require investment to restore and protect, but they are also enormously important resources for these economies and for the world. The rate of destruction of these ecosystems has slowed dramatically, but it is in the interest of local communities and mitigation efforts around the world to reverse the trend entirely, and help mangroves grow back in areas where they have been lost. The four instances in this article are only a few examples of how indigenous and local communities are leading the way around the world.

Additional reporting by Naushad Ali Husein