Environmental Bleaching Impairs Long-Term Coral Reproduction
Bleaching, a process where high water temperatures or UV light stresses the coral to the point where it loses its symbiotic algal partner that provides the coral with color, is also affecting the long-term fertility of the coral…
How a Small Tribe Turned Tragedy into Opportunity
While heads of states and development experts fly around the world to discuss the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, a forgotten tribe nestled in Pichavaram mangrove forest, is already practicing a new way of life – and they are pointing the way forward to a sustainable future.
El Salvador Restores Biodiversity
Local organisations and the environment ministry launched The National Programme for the Restoration of Ecosystems and Landscapes (PREP), seeking to restore ecosystems like forests and wetlands and preserve biodiversity, as part of what its promoters describe as “an ambitious national effort to adapt to climate change,” whose impacts are increasingly severe in this small Central American nation of 6.2 million.
Facing Storms Without the Mangrove Wall
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..
Destruction of Mangroves Costs up to US$42 billion in Economic Damages Annually – UNEP Report
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.
Salvadoran Farmers Stake Their Bets on Sustainable Development
Peasant farmers from one of El Salvador’s most fragile coastal areas are implementing a model of sustainable economic growth that respects the environment and offers people education and security as keys to give the wetland region a boost.
NOAA Lists 20 Coral Species As Threatened
NOAA announced it will afford Endangered Species Act protections to 20 coral species. All 20 species will be listed as threatened. Fifteen of the newly listed species occur in the Indo-Pacific and five in the Caribbean.
Mangroves Planted To Protect Airport From Coastal Erosion
Dozens of schoolchildren and hundreds of university students and soldiers helped to protect Ahmad Yani International Airport in Semarang, Central Java, from coastal erosion by planting 10,000 mangroves on Maron Beach.
Kenya Launches Giant Lamu Port Construction Project
A Chinese firm, China Communication Construction Company, has signed a $478.9 million deal to construct three berths at Kenyan Indian Ocean port of Lamu. The port, at completion, will have 32 berths. The project involves dredging shallow inland channels and felling shoreline-stabilizing mangrove forests.