ENVIRONMENT: Mangroves Find a Minder in Wetland International

By Kunda Dixit Reprint | | Print |

Kunda Dixit

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 12 1995 (IPS) - The wanton decimation of mangrove ecosystems worldwide — often to make way for industrial development — is raising alarm among environmentalists who this week launched a new body to protect the world’s swamplands.

Called Wetland International, the organisation will bring together the work of three existing groups: International Waterfowls and Wetlands Research Bureau (IWRB), Asian Wetlands Bureau (AWB) and Wetlands for the Americas.

“All three agencies are concerned with wetlands conservation, and by pooling their resources we can intensify our conservation activities worldwide,” said Derek Langslow, chairman of the Malaysia-based Asian Wetlands Bureau.

Wetland International will consist of 50 member countries and conservationists hope the body will also make it easier for fund- raising as a time when both mangroves and the money to protect them are dwindling fast.

The launch of the body came during an international conference taking place in the Malaysian capital this week and attended by 350 environmentalists and officials from 70 countries.

Inaugurating the meeting, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said the cost of saving the planet’s environment should be borne equally by all nations. But he pointed out that the promises made at the 1992 Earth Summit for such support for poor countries to protect their environment had not materialised.

“Developing countries need to develop, and the preservation of wetlands must be equitably shared between the rich and the poor,” Mahathir said.

This is a sensitive point between governments and environmentalists in the region.

Countries like Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia have converted vast tracts of mangrove swamps into shrimp farms, housing estates, hotels, ports and industrial parks, justifying it in the name of economic progress.

In trying to catch up with their richer neighbours, Burma, Vietnam and Cambodia are set to destroy their own wetlands.

As a type of aquatic rainforest, mangroves are regarded by environmentalists as the most productive and valuable ecosystems. Mangroves and wetlands support a wide range of species both on land and sea.

Half of the seven million hectares of mangroves in the Asia- Pacific are found in Indonesia. But many of these precious eco- systems are being wiped off the map by timber companies and development projects. Of its original 4.6 million hectares of mangroves, only about three million hectares remain.

The loss of wetlands causes a drastic decrease in fisheries and biodiversity, it increases flooding, prolongs the dry season and leads to coastal and riverbank erosion, says the AWB’s Indonesia programme.

Since 1986, the AWB has been working with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry to manage the country’s wetlands, but green groups say the mangroves are too far depleted and the damage is almost irreversible.

One of the most devastated areas is Bituni Bay in the province of Irian Jaya on the island of New Guinea. The shallow bay is rich in bio-diversity and is a designated nature reserve, but this has not prevented logging and fishing companies from exploiting the area.

Bituni mangroves are crushed into pulp and exported to Taiwan where, ironically, they are used to manufacture paper money. Mangrove pulp is prized for the manufacture of computer paper and fine-quality newsprint, driving Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean companies to look for new sources of pulp as mangrove forests are depleted.

A study four years ago in Thailand showed that the economic benefits of mangroves as a natural hatchery for fish, erosion and flood protection is 10 times higher than say for example, the short-term conversion to shrimp farming or housing.

Malaysia’s own record in mangrove protection has been almost as bad as Indonesia’s, and green groups say the country has designated only one per cent of its total mangrove forest for protection.

Two decades ago, the Philippines had 450,000 hectares of mangroves. Population pressure and development has brought that area down to 90,000 hectares today.

In South Asia, the root cause of mangrove decimation is more as a result of poverty.

The world’s largest single tract of mangrove forests is the 420,000 hectare Sunderbans Forest on the Ganges Delta in India and Bangladesh which is a potential source of vital foreign exchange.

International green groups say the first priority in saving mangroves, like rainforests, is to curb demand — which means pressure Japanese and Taiwanese companies not to import mangrove pulp for their paper factories.

“Policy-makers in Japan, by far the world’s largest importer of tropical logs and timber should clearly understand this,” says Toshihiro Nakano of the Japanese green group, OISCA International.

Mangroves are also very sensitive to pollution, and most of south-east Asia’s coastal forests sit astride some of the busiest oil tanker routes in the world — the narrow Malacca Straits, the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand.