An aerial view of a mangrove forest along the Guyana coast. Approximately 90 per cent of Guyana’s population lives on a narrow coastline strip a half to one metre below sea level. Courtesy: Ministry of the Presidency/OCC/Kojo McPherson

By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, Mar 8 2019 (IPS)

For several decades, Guyana has been using mangroves to protect its coasts against natural hazards, and the country believes its mangrove forests should be included in programmes like the REDD+ of United Nations, in order to access financing to continue their restoration and maintenance, as they complement miles of seawalls that help to prevent flooding.

In recent years, the seawall barriers, which have existed since the Dutch occupation of Guyana, have been breeched by severe storms. This resulted in significant flooding, a danger which scientists predict could become more frequent with climate change.

The seawalls must also be maintained, and this is at an enormous cost for Guyana which has been spending an average of 14 million dollars a year to maintain and strengthen the defences.

Joseph Harmon, Minister of State in the Ministry of the President of Guyana, said given the importance of mangroves, they should factor more in discussions about financing to help countries build resilience to natural hazards and climate related risks.

“While we look at climate change, while we look at sustainable livelihoods, we have a forest that is so inaccessible, but the areas that are accessible are also threatened,” Harmon told IPS.

“The fact that we’re on a low coastal plain, the issues of environment and environmental funding must cater for mangroves as well.”

Approximately 90 percent of Guyana’s population lives on a narrow coastline strip a half to one metre below sea level, and Harmon said almost 80 percent of the country’s productive means are on the coast as well.

“We’ve actually started, several years ago, with the establishment of mangroves as a form of defence from rising sea levels,” he said.

“We would want to posit that in the way in which forest coverage calculations are done, that mangrove protection, which protects the persons on the coast, that must also be a feature of your forest coverage because it does the same thing as the forest in the hinterland.”

According to the Nature Conservancy and Wetlands International, mangroves don’t always provide a stand-alone solution, and may need to be combined with other risk reduction measures to achieve high levels of protection.

As is the case with Guyana, appropriately integrated mangroves can contribute to risk reduction in almost every coastal setting, ranging from rural to urban and from natural to heavily degraded landscapes.

The benefits offered by mangrove forests include timber and fuel production, productive fishing grounds, carbon storage, enhances tourism and recreation as well as water purification.

Janelle Christian, the Head of the Office of Climate Change in Guyana, said the mangrove forests provide livelihood opportunities for residents of many coastal communities.

“There are a lot of coastal community women’s groups involved in beekeeping and honey production,” Christian told IPS.

“Along where many of the mangrove forests are located you also have fishing communities. So, for us, it is important both as a form of natural protection and also because of the livelihood opportunities tied to that.”

Mangrove trees grow along the bank of the Demerara River which rises in the central rainforests and flows to the north for 346 kilometres until it reaches the Atlantic Ocean. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

In 1990, the total area of mangrove forest in Guyana was estimated at 91,000 hectares, according to a country report to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. By 2009, this figure stood at 22,632 hectares, notes the same report.

But the country has been on an intensive campaign to protect and restore its coastal mangroves. Christian said in 2010, Guyana started a mangrove restoration project funded by a partnership between the Government of Guyana and the European Union.

The project’s overall objective was to respond to climate change and to mitigate its effects through the protection, rehabilitation and wise use of mangrove ecosystems through processes that maintain their function, values and biodiversity, while meeting the socio-economic development and environmental protection needs in estuarine and coastal areas.

More than 141 hectares of mangrove forest has been restored along Guyana’s coastline since rehabilitation efforts began. The country has about 80,000 hectares in place and continues to accelerate the growth of mangroves, many of which were lost 30 years ago.

“Going along the coast you will see mangrove regrowth in several areas where they were diminished,” Christian said, pointing to the success of the project.

“It’s an important natural mechanism against floods. It also helps in terms of land reclamation because over time the roots of the mangrove allow for sedimentation and so there’s a build-up of land.”

The restoration project also provides employment for residents.

At the various restoration sites, local women – often single mothers – were paid 50 cents for each 14-inch mangrove seedling they grow. It also provided temporary employment opportunities for seedling planters and site monitors.

“So, there are livelihood opportunities that are tied to mangrove-type forests,” Christian said.

Other traditional applications include using the bark of red mangrove trees for tanning leather. It sells for approximately 100 dollars per pound. The leaves of black mangrove trees are used by locals in cooking.

Geotextile tubes help natural regeneration of mangroves. The biodegradable tube filled with sand and water is used to form a barrier. Spartina grass is then planted in the area. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, May 14 2014 (IPS)

Agriculture has always played an important role in the socioeconomic development of Guyana, one of just two Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states that straddle South America.

Agriculture accounts for more than 20 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It is food-secure, and agricultural commodities represent more than 40 percent of its export portfolio."I’ve heard people say 'I’m poor and I’m not a scientist and I can’t do anything.' In fact we can do much as small countries, including in the reduction of emissions." -- Dr. Leslie Ramsammy

The 15-member regional bloc has always looked to Guyana, with an estimated 3.3 million hectares of agricultural land, as having a vital role in the Caribbean’s thrust towards food security.

But the chief executive officer of the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), Dr. Oudho Homenauth, warns that climate change is robbing Guyana of some of its prime agricultural land.

“We are seeing increasing rainfall, higher tides and so forth,” he told IPS, noting that this has consequences for farmland, particularly along the coast.

“The seawater, as you know, is saline and once saline water gets on the land it is very difficult for that land to recover for crop production because there is nothing we can do in terms of adding any kind of amendment to correct soil salinity.”

Homenauth explained that “the land will have to be left for over a period of time until that salinity is lost” and as the authorities move to protect the agricultural land and also its population, most of whom live along the coasts, Homenauth told IPS that Guyana has come to recognise the importance of mangroves, especially for coastal areas.

He said the country has been on an intensive campaign to protect and restore its coastal mangroves.

Approximately 90 percent of Guyana’s population lives on a narrow coastline strip a half to one metre below sea level. That coastal belt is protected by seawall barriers that have existed since the Dutch occupation of the country.

In recent times, however, severe storms have toppled these defences, resulting in significant flooding, a danger scientists predict may become more frequent.

“Everybody knows Guyana’s seawall, the famous seawall, which is an expensive structure to maintain and to continue to build, particularly as sea level rises,” Agriculture Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy told IPS.

Guyana spends an average of three billion dollars a year to maintain and strengthen sea defences. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

He said that maintaining the seawalls is an enormous cost for Guyana, which has been spending an average of three billion dollars a year to maintain and strengthen the defences.

“But in order to ensure that the seawall and sea dams continue to serve us well and to be less vulnerable to the onslaught of the ocean, we have been protecting and promoting the growth of mangroves and other structures such as geotextile tubes to reduce the impact of the waves coming in,” Ramsammy said.

“We’ve been doing bamboo growth along the seawalls to reduce the impact of the waves coming in. So a number of different structures are being tried but mangroves represent a major response of the Guyana government in supporting the seawall and therefore reducing the impact of water hitting against the wall, against the dams etc.”

Guyana has about 80,000 hectares of mangroves in place right now and over the last three or four years, the country has been “accelerating the growth of mangroves”, many of which were lost 20 to 30 years ago.

“We lost some of our mangroves and we are restoring those mangroves now. But we are also establishing mangrove growth in places that we’ve never been to,” Ramsammy said, noting that “with the water and movement onto the shore, it is very difficult to grow mangroves.”

As a result, Guyana has been conducting research to determine the best technology to use to achieve success.

“You need mangroves to grow to a certain extent before it can withstand the water and so we’ve been trying things like various grasses and so on to hold the soil together and we have been succeeding in these,” Ramsammy told IPS.

Technicians came up with the idea of constructing geotextile tubes to help natural regeneration. A biodegradable tube filled with sand and water is used to form a barrier so that at high tide, muddy water can enter the area and sediment left behind can help build the soil up to a necessary level.

Spartina grass is then planted in the area. The technicians have found that the mangrove seeds would get caught in the grass and would later germinate.

When it comes to climate change and global warming, Ramsammy believes Guyanese should take pride that they are perhaps the most aware country in the world.

“I can’t say that our people know all the details, all the science, but that’s not the point. If we could also make them aware of the science that’s okay but they are very aware of climate change as a phenomenon; they are very aware of what climate change can do to us and therefore they are becoming part of the climate change revolution,” he told IPS.

“We have vast room for improvement in Guyana and the Caribbean but I think that Guyana would rank as one of those countries where people are very much aware. Are they doing what is necessary? I think they lag in terms of their knowledge and what they do, but if you don’t create the knowledge, actions will not follow.”

Ramsammy noted that no country is too small to do something about climate change. In fact, he said there are things that every citizen in the world can do.

“I’ve heard people say ‘I’m poor and I’m not a scientist and I can’t do anything.’ In fact we can do much as small countries, including in the reduction of emissions,” he said.

“We have in Antigua or even Guyana hotels etc. If these hotels were to switch [from] the use of fossil fuel to the use of bio-digesters, using the waste to create energy, we can make a big difference in emissions and maybe in the global environment. It is a needle in the sand but at least it creates an avenue for every citizen to play a role and I think we should adopt that kind of approach that all of us as citizens could do something,” Ramsammy added.

Spartina grass in the foreground, with geotextile tubes in the distance, that help mangrove trees regenerate naturally. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
VICTORIA, Guyana, Oct 26 2013 (IPS)

Theola Fortune can recall how residents of Victoria would ridicule her and others every time they went into the east coast village to warn residents about the importance of mangroves and the need to protect them.

“They would accuse us of breeding mosquitoes in the community,” Fortune said. Yet scientists say that mangrove trees, which grow mainly in tropical and subtropical regions, can shield cities and towns from rising seas and storm surges by creating a natural barrier where the ocean meets the land.

Approximately 90 percent of Guyana’s population lives on a narrow coastline strip a half to one metre below sea level. That coastal belt is protected by seawall barriers that have existed since the Dutch occupation of the country. In recent times, however, severe storms have toppled these defences, resulting in significant flooding, a danger scientists predict may become more frequent.

After huge waves breached the seawalls on more than one occasion this year alone, Fortune said, “residents are finally beginning to realise that mangroves could help to protect their community” from destruction, in addition to saving lives."Residents are finally beginning to realise that mangroves could help to protect their community."
-- Theola Fortune

Fortune, Avnel Wood and Kene Moseley are among the women who, as part of the Guyana Mangrove Restoration Project (GMRP), are combining commercial activity with spreading the word on the importance of protecting coastal mangroves.

“We sell tamarind balls, honey, coconut biscuits, sugar cane juice and other products,” Wood told IPS, adding that with the project, “many single mothers in the community are now able to provide for their families.”

Wood does not doubt what is causing the unusually high waves and frequent topping of the seawalls. “This is a product of climate change,” she told IPS. “There is nothing in that [coastal] area to break the energy of the waves because there are no mangroves at that part of the seawall.”

Scientists say that mangroves also play an important role in combating climate change because they store ten times more carbon than any other tree in Guyana’s forests.

Education and economic empowerment

In 2011 the GMRP, which is funded by a partnership between the European Union and government of Guyana, established the Mangrove Reserve Women’s Producers Group to promote alternative livelihoods in communities along the coast.

“The European Union recognises the immense value of mangroves and protecting mangroves, contributing to our sea defence,” Annette Arjoon Martins, chairman of the Guyana Mangrove Action Committee, told IPS.

Guyana showed its commitment as well, she said, by making available 100 million Guayana dollars in 2010, a move which “in itself was a good demonstration that…we are not going to wait until the EU funds are released.”

Fortune told IPS that her mother is among a group of about 35 women who are now beekeepers, thanks to the project. They can sell honey from the bees for 100 Guyana dollars (50 U.S. cents) an ounce.

The beekeepers build their hives in the black mangrove forest, Wood said. “The mangroves have a lot of flowers, and so they get a lot of honey at a faster rate.”

The GMRP also provides climate change and mangrove education to local children and youth, while visitors from other parts of the country and from outside Guyana are taken on horse-drawn carts for educational tours.

Restoration efforts

In 2011, only 22,632 hectares of mangroves remained in Guyana. Since then, more than a half million mangrove seedlings have been planted throughout the country as efforts intensify to protect the Guyana shoreline from coastal degradation.

Still, more work needs to be done, Leslie Ramsammy, Guyana’s agriculture minister, told IPS. “We have to do a much better job in educating our people about the mangrove,” he said.

“While some of us seem to now know that mangroves are an important part of our defence against an encroaching sea, against rising sea water, not every citizen sees mangroves as a good thing or as a necessary thing.”

For those who did and do consider mangroves important, it has taken several attempt to figure out how to help protect them.

Initially, “we did mangrove planting in the area, but because the elevation of the mud was not up to the required level, erosion took place. All of the mangrove trees we planted were destroyed,” Wood told IPS.

So the technicians went back to the drawing board and came up with the idea of constructing geotextile tubes to help natural regeneration. A biodegradable tube filled with sand and water is used to form a barrier so that at high tide, muddy water can enter the area and sediment left behind can help build the soil up to a necessary level.

“Spartina grass is then planted in the area,” Wood explained. “We have found that the mangrove seeds would get caught in the grass and would later germinate.” Because of the tubes and the grass, she said, “in this area, we are fortunate to have regeneration” of the mangroves.