A Concise Summary of the Causes of Mangrove Deforestation

The majority of my blog posts have focused on rainforests such as the Amazon or Borneo but this blog post will focus on mangrove forests and the inspiration (like so often) comes from a news article.

In South East Asia (the focus of the news article), but in mangrove areas more generally, they provide important ecosystem services for local communities from a source of food, a source of income and as a natural barrier against storm surges. They also hold greater concentrations of carbon dioxide compared with other ecosystems (Donato et al. 2011) and are thus a vital carbon sink. More than 35% of mangrove forests have already been cleared and understanding why this is the case is important to try and stop it from continuing (WWF).

What are the causes of mangrove deforestation?

• In South East Asia, it is an expansion of palm oil plantations stemming from a greater affluence of the population (Phys Org).
• The 1970s saw the expansion of shrimp aquaculture (fueled by foreign aid) in Latin America that ate away at the coastal mangrove swamps (Hamilton and Stankwitz 2011). However, there has been little quantification of the extent of mangrove forest destruction in these regions. Data is often incomplete (Hilares-Cota 2010)
• Agricultural expansion of rice in Myanmar to ensure food security. 
• Population and infrastructure - humans need more space and mangrove forests are often replaced with ports to meet the growing needs of towns and cities (WWF).
• Dams and irrigation systems alter the amount of river and sediment reaching mangrove swamps increasing salinity causing a decline in marine organisms and plants (WWF). In the Volta Delta, Ghana, a combination of upstream damming and forest clearance has led to the devastation of the pristine mangrove forests (Rubin et al. 1999).
• Pollution - fertilizers, human waste, industrial waste etc.
• Climate change - mangroves will not be able to keep pace with rising sea levels (Gilman et al. 2008).

All Alone? The future for mangroves looks bleak (source)

Research into mangrove deforestation is focused on two central areas (south east Asia and Latin America) and in both cases there is a lack of quantification of the extent of mangrove deforestation. However, whilst Latin America mangrove deforestation is fueled by the expansion of aquaculture in SE Asia the mangrove deforestation (and deforestation generally) is fueled by a rapidly expanding population, economies and demand for space, food and goods. The studies are complementary in their accounts of the value of mangrove forest, particularly as a carbon sink, and note the effects in relation to climate change but there is a lack of interest in the socio-economic impact that mangrove deforestation has on individual lives - this could be due to the physical/environmental perspective of the studies above rather than a human geography focus. From the research conducted by Donato et al. (2011) and the WWF it would appear that mangrove forests are regarded as vital stores of atmospheric carbon, more so than tropical rainforests, despite occupying less areal extent. Like tropical rainforests they are a crucial ecocsystem and everything should be done to try and preserve them but can they survive a rise in sea level associated with climate change? Mangrove forests might soon be a thing of the past. 

This blog post, whilst short, offered an insight into a different ecosystem that has not been discussed on this blog before. Whilst there is potential to create a completely new blog from the extensive research and news articles on the topic, this blog offers a concise summary of the causes of mangrove deforestation (which are in many ways different to other types of deforestation). However, the effects of this deforestation are fundamentally the same as any other form of deforestation.