Mangroves

Mangrove plants include trees, shrubs, ferns and palms. These plants are found in the tropics and sub- tropics on riverbanks and along coastlines, being unusually adapted to anaerobic conditions of both salt and fresh water environments. Mangrove plants form communities which help to stabilize banks and coastlines and become home to many types of animals. Mangroves are marine tidal forests and cover about 180,000 sq km.

The distribution patterns of mangroves are the result of a wide range of historical and contemporary factors. Perhaps the most obvious distribution patterns, the latitudinal limits, are largely set by low temperatures, both sea surface temperatures and air temperatures, and particularly by extremes of temperature. Mangrove forests have been widely used by coastal people of the tropics for thousands of years. Many human communities have a traditional dependence on mangroves for their survival and a wide range of natural products from the mangroves and their surrounding waters are utilized. Mangroves are used, among other things, to supply building material, firewood, charcoal, food and medicine.

In the 1970s-1980s mangroves were generally considered as waste lands with little intrinsic value and their destruction was encouraged by governments and planners. This attitude did little to ensure productive and sustainable use of the mangrove ecosystem. Such attitudes still exist today and mangroves are being cleared around the world without much thought being given as to whether this is the best way to manage a productive and economically valuable resource. Mangroves can be economically and ecologically important and common sense dictates that their use should be managed carefully. Short-term schemes and attempts to produce quick profits all too often lead to long-term disasters.

Based partly on:
Spalding, M.D., Blasco, F. and Field, C.D. (eds). 1997. World mangrove Atlas. The International Society for mangrove Ecosystems, Okinawa, Japan. 178 pp.