Halloween Crabs!

Happy Halloween  to all Mangrove Action Squad readers! Spooky old mangrove trees says Hi to you!

And nope, we are not celebrating Halloween with a cheap B-movie thriller titled ‘Mangrove Slasher 2′ (below)!

Mangroves are definitely not the ideal place to  go ‘trick-or-treat’ but obvious reasons (being muddy and dangerous) unless you have ‘friends’ staying within the mangroves.

Nevertheless, there are some mangrove dwellers that are some hardcore Halloween followers that put on their  ‘costumes’ for their entire life-span. One of them would be that of  Halloween Crab (Gecarcinus quadratus).

I think you can appreciate why this species of crab is named as such. Its striking but yet fearsome colours could function as an aposematic function i.e warning colouration  its predators.  Other names include red land crab,whitespot crab moon crab, mouthless crab and harlequin land crab. This terrestial land crab can found in mangroves, lowland tropical forest and sand  dunes in the New World (the Americas) except Northern America. Too bad it is not found in Singapore.

Another interesting characteristic, would be its reproduction life history. It lives in the forest at least some of its adult life, but needs to return to the ocean to breed. This situation is similiar to  reproductive life history of a catadromous fish  i.e. a  fish that spend most of their lives in fresh water and migrate to the sea to breed. For example, most eels are catadromous.

Well, so the Halloween crab is a cool creature. Perhaps this maybe a good idea to wear a crab costume for Halloween? How about a cool Craboween costume for your dog?

Happy Halloween! =)

Seafood vs. Mangroves

An interesting article from The Independent (UK)  on 24th October 2011 highlights the lost of mangroves in tropical island of Muisne, off Ecuador’s northern coast to due to shrimp farming. Singapore had its fair share of such losses of mangroves due to their establishments. Kindly read Ria Tan’s fact sheet  on shrimp ponds in Singapore.

Highlights of the article:

“Feeding the developed world’s seemingly insatiable demand for cheap seafood, shrimp farms have ravaged Muisne’s delicate mangrove ecosystem…”

“In the 1970s, before shrimp farms arrived, the island had 20,000 hectares of mangroves. Now there are just over 5,000 hectares”

“From Indonesia to Brazil, the story is the same. Yet nowhere has the growth of farms for shrimp, prawns, salmon and other species been as explosive as in Latin America and the Caribbean. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, production in the region grew annually at 21.1 per cent between 1970 and 2008. Over the same period, annual global consumption of farm-reared seafood has risen from 700g to 7.8kg per capita. “

The articles also reiterates the bad impacts of shrimp farms not only to mangroves but to other ecosystems

“The shrimp farms typically have a complex series of environmental impacts. Initially, sections of the mangrove are cleared to make way for the farms. Once operational, the farms may use large quantities of antibiotics and pesticides that often contaminate the surrounding forests. Farms can also obstruct the flow of rivers and streams, preventing them from mixing with seawater to provide the brackish water that mangroves need to thrive. In doing so, they provide a double whammy by stopping the farms’ pollutants from being washed away, increasing the ecological devastation while the shrimp and prawns are reared in a cocktail of chemicals, stale water and bacteria.”

To read more, kindly visit the webpage below:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/how-the-hunt-for-seafood-is-ravaging-a-tropical-island-2375084.html

 

Down Memory Lane: Remnants of Kampongs in Mandai Mangrove

Mandai mangrove is located between two rivers Sungei Mandai Besar (Big Mandai River) and Sungei Mandai Kechil (Small Mandai River) hence the mangrove was autonomously named Mandai. This 10-ha mangrove area once housed several Malay villages or better known as kampong-s (or kampung-s). One kampong that was  documented fairly well was Kampong Lorong Fatimah (Village of Fatimah’s Alley).

“A main characteristic of a typical kampung house is its on stilts or piles. This was to avoid wild animals and floods, to deter thieves, and for added ventilation”

Excerpt taken from Wikipedia

A typical kampong house would look like this.

Kampong Lorong Fatimah

” This Malay kampong was situated off Woodlands Road, near the causeway, past the immigration checkpoint. It was in existence even in the late eighties. Some of the houses were constructed on stilts. Only a small channel separated this kampong from Johor. In the past, this kampong was filled with sampans or koleks ferrying people between Johor and Singapore. With the sea on one side and a jungle on the other (before Woodlands was fully developed), this kampong seemed very cut-off from the rest of urban Singapore. Entertainment in the past included ronggeng (a Malay ethnic dance) with the nomadic boat people who came here with their gongs, drums, tambourines and violas. Shopping was done from Indian men who came on bicycles carrying bundles containing clothes, towels and sarongs. Most of the villagers here were fishermen and boatmen. When industries were set up around Woodlands, many of them found jobs in the factories, while the younger ones found work in hotels and banks in Orchard Road. Kampong Lorong Fatimah was pulled down to make way for the construction of the Customs Department extension to the Woodlands Checkpoint. The kampong’s residents were relocated, mainly to the Marsiling and Woodlands HDB estates. “

Excerpt taken from Malay Villages in the North, National Library Board (NLB)

Fast forwarding from  the 1970s to the present day, the kampongs of Mandai  no longer exist . What’s left of these kampongs are merely remnants of concrete pavements, base floors of kampong houses

Panoramic view from a disposed two-seater sofa set

Old street lamp near Mandai Kechil River

Guan Yu (still worshipped today among the Chinese people) statue was delibrately left on this remmant, perhaps to 'protect' souls that have laid to rest in the mangrove

 

 

Stairs made of bricks of a typical old kampong house leading from the porch to the main doorOld stilts of a kampong house still standing even after more than 20 years or so

Green algae patch covering old concrete blocks

Current Research Project: Mapping Vegetation of Mandai Mangroves

On 24th September 2011, MAS was lucky to be part of Biodiversity of Singapore Symposium III (2011) and Mangrove Surveyor a.k.a Rick was given the golden opportunity to conduct a poster presentation of his ongoing Honours project titled ‘Investigation of Elevation-Vegetation Processes in Mandai Mangroves’. Ria Tan has his project all figured out, check this out!

Q: So what is  his project about?

A: He is mapping the soil elevation of the  Mandai mangrove (i.e. slope of soil surface of the mangrove) and vegetation i.e. trees of the mangrove.

Q: Hmhh..so where is  this Mandai  mangrove?

A:Well, it’s located near  Woodlands Checkpoint. However, public may not access the mangrove freely as it is a restricted site only bound for researchers with permit!

Q: So how does he map the mangrove’s elevation and vegetation?

A: He uses a surveying equipment called the total station (similiar to that of a camera) on a tripod which shoots lasers towards the prism head of a surveying pole held vertically to the ground.Each survey point that is measures the location and elevation of the point!

Total Station used for surveying

Overall setup for the total station

Q: Ahh…sounds ‘cheem’! (difficult in Singlish) So does every survey point measure the elevation of the soil? How about tree mapping?

A: Nah, not at all. The principle behind the surveying equipment is quite easy. He shall explain to you in more detail when you choose to join him for his surveys

Q: How about mapping trees? How does he do it?

A:Mapping trees consist of :-

(1)Measuring diameters of trees

Ria Tan of Wild Singapore fame helping Rick with his surveys.

3)Getting coordinates of trees

Wei 'Win-Win' Kit holds the pole with prism where it is grounded to the approximate location of the a measured tree

Dr. Balaji using the total station to capture the location of tree

Q: So how many trees will Rick map?

A:  At least 3000 trees and he has to identify each of them. Thankfully Dr. Jean Yong’s Comparative Guide to the SIngapore Mangroves helps him alot!

Q:So why should I volunteer to help in this project?

A: Many reasons actually but Rick gives three main reasons!

(1) Fun in the mud! If it is your first time stepping into a mangrove, it’s quite surreal!

Muddy fun time at Mandai Besar River!

2) Amazing fauna to look out for in Mandai

Some fauna found in Mandai mangrove

3) View of  Johor from way up here (Nope, you don’t to climb trees, just kidding) The view from Mandai is breath-taking; you have to be there to see it for yourself

Rick climbing a Rhizophora tree!

View of Johor Bahru and Johor Straits from Mandai Mangrove

Kindly email Rick at leongchinrick@gmail.com if you’re interested to know more about this project and help him with his project.

Introducing Dr. V. Balaji & Iona Soulsby

This month, Mangrove Action Squad (MAS) was very lucky to host to two visiting NGO mangrove enthusiasts  in Singapore from the Asian region; Dr. V. Balaji, the founder and director of OMCAR (Organization For Marine Conversation Awareness and Research) in Tamil Nadu and Ms. Iona Soulsby, team leader for MAP (Mangrove Action Project) Sulawesi, Indonesia. Both individuals have done great work for their respective NGOs and we were thrilled to have them in Singapore.

Iona Soubly measuring the diameter at breast height (DBH) in Mandai Mangroves

Iona is equally happy in and outside of the mangroves

Ms. Iona Soulsby works in South Sulawesi province, Indonesia for almost a year as a team leader for mangrove rehabilitation project for Mangrove Action Project (MAP). Her place of work concentrates on a several small islands of Makasar (capital of Sulawesi) that were made into shrimp ponds (or better known as ‘tambak’ in Indonesian Language). Her work consists of leading a team of working on various fieldwork projects some of  which include monitoring vegetation in these once-natural habitats. Hailing from the land of the Kiwis and having earned a degree in Environmental Science and Development Studies  from Victoria University of Wellington, Iona is a true environmentalist and working in the  mangroves came instinctively to her. Having lived in Bali for a couple of years, this ‘bule’ (Indonesian language for a Westerner) speaks fluent Indonesian and has been nick-named the Mangrove Princess of Indonesia (look at the golden bracelet and the ring in the photo above!) Her visit to Singapore was mainly to learn few mangrove monitoring techniques from Dr. Daniel Friess a.k.a. Mangrove Man to assist her in developing better and cost effective methodologies to monitor the mangroves in Sulawesi! During her stay in Singapore, she has also assisted Rick in his project to map the vegetation of Mandai Mangroves. MAS believes she had a great time in the Mandai and Singapore and we would love to have her back in Singapore in the near future.

Dr. Balaji chilling out at during dinner at Lau Pa Sat (Telok Ayer Market)

Dr. Balaji at full focus while handling the total station in Mandai mangroves

Dr. Balaji (or prefers  just to be called Balaji) is an awesome individual in short.  MAS’ introduction of Balaji is best written from his own foundation’s webpage

” Dr. V. Balaji, founder and Managing Trustee of OMCAR Foundation was born in 13th January 1980 in Pattukkottai, Tamil Nadu.  He has completed his B.Sc., in Zoology (2000), M.Sc., in Marine Biology (2002), M.Phil., in mangrove ecology (2004) and Ph.D in Seagrass Ecology (2009).  His interest in marine conservation was started since his school days that lead to perform his self motivated commitment in insitu conservation practices with local community in northern Palk Bay.  His part time volunteering in local non governmental organizations helped to understand the concepts and to get the field experience since 2000.   At the age of 22, he decided to work independently as a full time social worker and conservation biologist in local coastal areas.  He conducted 1100km of solo bike expedition along the 540 coastal villages for a research and coastal environmental awareness programme in 2002 and sea turtle conservation campaign with WWF in 2003.  He has paddled 600km in a sea kayak from Rameshwaram to Chennai to create awareness on conservation of coastal ecosystems of Tamil Nadu.  He found OMCAR Foundation as a platform to perform his marine conservation, awareness and ecological research  activities through a participatory approach of fisherfolk community”

Excerpt taken from OMCAR

Balaji’s work  in the mangroves of Tamil Nadu , include ecological mangrove restoration, children environmental education programmes, fisher woman empowerment programmes, research and coastal ecology fieldtrips, coastal cleaning programmes and many more activities. Besides mangroves, Balaji is also interested conservation of other coastal habitats such as sea grasses and their fauna and flora found within them. Although he was only in Singapore for three short days, Dr. Balaji was still happy to give help out in Rick’s project in Mandai and also gave short talk on his foundation in NUS. Needless to say, Balaji is truly  a remarkable individual and we enjoyed his short presentation on his foundation’s work at the end of his visit in Singapore.

Balaji (right) being introduced to attendees of his talk by Mangrove Man (left)

Balaji talked about rehabilitation of mangrove trees on edges of a canal

We hope both Iona and Balaji will come back to Singapore and share more stories with MAS and the public. Thank you, Iona and Balaji!