Galle, Sri Lanka. Photograph: © SAF – Coastal Care.

Excerpts;

Fifteen years after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Sri Lanka’s government intends to keep expanding the island’s coastal green belt — the chain of mangrove swamps credited with limiting the damage and destruction of the deadly waves…

Read Full Article; MongaBay (09-22-2019)

Sri Lanka to become the first nation in the world to protect all its mangroves; Guardian UK (05-12-2015)
More than half the world’s mangroves have been lost over the last century but all of those surviving in Sri Lanka, one of their most important havens, are now to be protected in an unprecedented operation…

Sri Lankan mangroves respond to conservation plan; SciDev (08-18-2016)
A year after Sri Lanka launched a mangrove conservation plan, about half of its 37,000 hectares of mangrove forests are in a various stage of revival, officials say…

Destruction of Mangroves Costs up to US$42 billion in Economic Damages Annually – UNEP Report (10-14-2014)
The world is losing its mangroves at a faster rate than global deforestation, the United Nations revealed, in a new report “Importance of Mangroves: A Call to Action,” adding that the destruction of the coastal habitats was costing billions in economic damages and impacting millions of lives…

Facing Storms Without the Mangrove Wall, IPS News (10-15-2014)
While tropical cyclones and storms cannot be stopped in their tracks, there is a natural defense system against their more savage impacts: mangroves. And experts fear their tremendous value is being woefully under-appreciated, to tragic effect, all around the world..

The World Must Invest In Mangroves, The Ecologist (04-11-2014)

UAE Coast. The area around Abu Dhabi is rich in mangroves—trees and shrubs able to grow in salty soil and water—that help prevent coastal erosion. Although mangrove forests typically occur in tropical and subtropical environments, the summertime temperatures along the UAE coast (often exceeding 35°C, or 95°F) pose challenges to mangrove survival. Mangrove forests here have grown in recent decades, according to the UAE government, thanks to large-scale re-forestation programs.
Image and photo source: NASA Earth Observatory

Excerpts;

The coastal city of Abu Dhabi is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to the impacts of climate change. It’s threatened by rising sea levels and researchers say it could be too hot to live in by the end of this century if global warming trends continue.

But trees are helping the city fight the climate crisis. Mangroves…

Read Full Article; CNN (07-15-2019)