ICRAF in the Media:Rebuilding Asia's coastal barrier

In the wake of the December 2004 tsunami, the Indian Ocean nations affected are admitting that the damage was partially self-inflicted. Over the past 20 years, these countries have systematically destroyed one of the most effective barriers to ocean forces - mangrove forests - in the name of development.Shrimp farms, tourist resorts and urban expansion have devoured 35 to 50 per cent of these 'bioshields' over the entire region. Many of these deforested pockets of prosperity were hit hardest, the tsunami washing away years of economic growth.Now, governments in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Thailand all want to restore what nature once provided for free: they plan to spend millions of dollars replanting thousands of hectares of mangrove forest.Scientists applaud the 'greening' agenda but warn that to succeed, replanting strategies must include workforce training and supervision, maintenance of seedlings, and increased public awareness about coastal land use. Some economists add that we need a better understanding of the relationship between these endangered ecosystems and the communities that rely on them."Reforestation is unlikely to succeed in the long term because the underlying policies haven't changed," says Edward Barbier, an environmental economist at the University of Wyoming, United States, who has done extensive research on Thailand's mangroves. Barbier is not surprised that Thailand suffered such extreme damage; since 1961, more than half its mangroves have been removed.Replanting is critical to restoring ecosystems, he says, but trees alone cannot create the long-term stability needed for sustainable economic growth.Mangroves tend to be undervalued in economic calculations, which only include the benefits of developing them (such as woodchips or farmed shrimp). This makes it easy for governments to gamble on 'developing' the forests. The tsunami clearly raised the stakes - and strengthened the case for protection that ecologists and economists have been making for years.For Full Story