Mangrove Alliance Announced at World Ocean Summit The Yucatan Times
go to original March 9, 2017

Global Mangrove Alliance Announced at World Ocean Summit (TVC Group)

The World Ocean Summit, an event exploring how to sustain an ocean economy, wrapped up last week in Bali, Indonesia and will be held next year in Mexico.

At the conference, the Global Mangrove Alliance lobbied for trying to restore the world’s mangrove habitats 20% by 2030. Why does this matter? Mangroves provide key benefits to society and are being lost at an alarming rate. On the current pace there will be no mangroves on earth in 100 years, and Mexico has the sixth largest habitat in the world.

Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund will work together to build a global alliance and leverage the expertise, funding, knowledge, resources, diverse skills and networks of all members to amplify existing efforts and increase attention to the critical role of mangroves in coastal ecosystems.

The Alliance is developing a work plan based on consultations with experts on the ground around the world. Projects will be expanded locally, regionally and globally with communities, governments and private sector leaders committed to halting and reversing mangrove forest loss, which already amounts to 50 percent of the world’s habitats over the past half century.

“People who live in and around mangroves benefit from their services but it’s important that people around the world realize the impact that mangrove habitats have on our planet,” said Maria Damanaki, Global Managing Director, Oceans at The Nature Conservancy. “The loss of these ecosystems could cause devastating effects to wildlife and humans alike and we need to start taking greater action now.”

Mangrove forests serve as a transition between marine and terrestrial environments, providing critical protection from the impacts of climate change including absorbing impact from wave energy and storm surges, adapting to rising sea levels and stabilizing shorelines from erosion. These forests also sequester and store atmospheric carbon, and thus play an important role in climate change mitigation.

Read the rest at The Yucatan Times

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