Introducing Dr. Ben Brown!

The audience (full house, by the way!) enthralled by Ben's seminar

Who is Ben Brown? Here is a brief introduction of Ben- he is  the Director of Mangrove Action Project (MAP) Indonesia. Hailing from Ann Arbor,Michigan,  Brown has been involved in coastal environmental education and community awareness for almost 20 years. Read more about  Ben here.

What is Mangrove Action Project (MAP)? It is a non-governmental organization which focuses on  conservation  and restoration of  mangrove forest (and other coastal ecoystems) worldwide while promoting community-based sustainable management of mangroves. MAP has several  regional offices in the U.S. and in some Asian countries, of which Ben is heading its regional office in Indonesia.

Ben telling the audience about programmes carried out of MAP Indonesia

The overall message of Ben’s seminar was to highlight the importance of understanding the ecology of mangrove establishment and mangrove geomorphology prior to mangrove restoration for  successful and cost-effective restoration of mangroves.

Here below are some highlights of the seminar:

Mangroves are losing out to human kind

They are being destroyed for multiple purposes mainly unsustainable developments including shrimp aquaculture (shrimp ponds), charcoal production and logging, oil exploration and extraction, tourism and urbanization and urban expansion. Shrimp aquaculture is the biggest threat to mangroves of Indonesia.

Blocking water bodies = mangrove death!

Mangrove death may occur when nearby mangrove areas are altered without the knowledge of hydrology, especially modification of tidal creeks or water bodies that support the vegetation area. From various case studies  pointed out in the talk, the blockage or damming of creek (e.g. dykes to prevent influx of saltwater into coconut plantations or isolation of shrimp ponds) have resulted in mangrove death by exposure of  hypersaline water (no input of freshwater) or erosion (loss of sedimentation input). MAP reinstates the flow of water i.e. the connectivity of freshwater and saltwater inputs in mangroves by drilling holes through the man-made dykes. Hydrology reinstalled!

Natural regeneration of mangroves seen after solving hydrological issues of a mangrove

Mangroves can be uplifted by the tsunami, if not destroyed!

Even mangroves may not survive from after-effects of a tsunami. Indian Ocean Tsunami in Year 2004 raised up elevation of coral reefs and mangrove areas in Acheh. This has lead to massive coral death (and bleaching) due to prolonged emersion/exposure to air and drying out of mangroves. Mangroves at higher elevations are now competing with terrestrial forests for space and survival. Even if the mangroves survive, their propagules will not be dispersed (due to little the no-longer existence of sea flooding for dispersal) nor established (due to the change in soil properties for e.g. soil type, temperature and soil moisture).

Mangrove survival depends on its flooding properties

-Mangroves establishment is highly dependent on frequency of its  inundation/flooding and inundation range, which in turn dependent on surface elevation (high, medium and low elevations).

Ben showing the inundation frequencies play a vital role in determining a mangrove survivability

-The knowledge of the surface elevation allow distinction of inundation zones within a mangrove, of which, mangrove species are selective towards specific inundation zones which they thrive in. For e.g., Avicennia spp. are pioneer species in Southeast Asian mangroves and would normally be found on low surface elevation/more frequently inundated zones.

Hmmh,  where I shall plant mangroves?

Ben also highlighted another mistake of other mangrove restoration projects. Most mangroves do not grow at low elevation i.e. below mean sea level. Although mangroves have the ability to tolerate lack of oxygen, prolonged lengths of water immersion (which may lead to accumulation of hydrogen sulfide toxicity) does not bode well for them, particular that of seedlings (young plants). Hence mangrove replanting  by other parties are often not successful as seedlings are planted at low elevation mangrove sites.

Planting Grass for Mangrove Restoration?

-Mangrove restoration at certain areas can be carried out with grass on bare grounds to assist natural mangrove recruitment when mangrove propagules are trapped by the grass. The grass will be removed eventually after the seedlings have grown.

Mangrove Restoration without replanting them. How?

-MAP approaches  mangrove restoration through  basic natural processes i.e. termed ecological mangrove restoration (EMR). Therefore,  contrary  to other mangrove restoration organizations, MAP does not implement nor advocate mangrove planting; the organization believes in natural establishment of mangroves from existing mangrove plants in a degraded site.

Therefore, it focuses to revert the modified topography and hydrology of a site to its natural conditions (prior to the modification) which in turn allows natural regrowth or succession of mangrove plants. This approach is more cost-saving (because mangrove propagules do not come cheap!) and  growth rate of planted mangroves  is slower than natural growth itself.

-A more detailed step-wise approach on EMR are simplified as below :-

• 1. Understand the biology i.e. characteristics of  individual mangrove (tree or shrub) species and  their communities, especially that of reproduction patterns, distribution ranges and  seedling establishment;
  2. Understand the normal hydrology that controls the distribution and successful establishment and growth of targeted mangrove species;
  3. Assess the severity of the modified of the mangrove and  the causes that currently prevent natural regrowth of mangrove species i.e. natural secondary succession;
  4. Select appropriate restoration areas through application of Steps 1-3, that are both likely to succeed in rehabilitating a forest ecosystem and are cost effective. This includes recruitment of  labor to carry out the projects, including adequate monitoring of their progress and resolving land ownership/use issues necessary for ensuring long-term access to and conservation of the site;
  5. Design the restoration program and utilize natural volunteer mangrove recruitment for natural plant establishment and long-term assessment for the mangrove site.

  Read in more detail about EMR here.

Communities awareness and involvement in mangrove restoration and conservation

Ben ended his talk with by mentioning several approaches that have been conducted by MAP to raise awareness within the local community and get them involved in mangrove restoration, monitoring and conservation projects . In Indonesia, there is a need to convince locals to stop conversion of mangroves into shrimp ponds since they are regarded as short-term cash cows. Therefore, incentives are given to locals to convince them on keeping mangroves for the more valuable profits gained from its ecosystem services. Mangrove-based products and recipes are being introduced to locals.

Several examples of mangrove products made from mangrove plants

Woman groups are also  involved in monitoring mangrove restoration sites.

....including Acanthus (sea holly) tea!!!

After the talk, there were multiple discussions/chatter on-going among the mangrove enthusiasts from different walks of life-all hyped for future mangrove plans in Singapore!

Ria Tan (Wild Singapore & Intertidal Queen) engaging in a conservation with two NParks mangrove officers

Jeffrey Low(NParks), Huiying (Nparks), Wei Kit the Mangrove Warrior and Dr. Jean Yong having a great discussion on mangroves!

Sivasothi a.k.a. Otterman talking to Dr. Ben Brown after the inspiring talk!

Kudos to Mangrove Man for being a great host!

In summary, the seminar was very informative and the multiple case studies in the seminar highlighted the efforts made by Ben, Iona and his MAP team. Kudos to MAP Indonesia! Terima Kasih (Thank you in Indonesian and Malay) Ben for the your inspiring talk and best wishes for MAP Indonesia from Mangrove Action Squad!

Ayubowan! (Greetings  in Sinhala, equivalent of saying “May you live a long life”).

Last December 2011, Rick a.k.a. the Mangrove Apprentice island-hopped from Singapore to Sri Lanka, which is  2601 kilometers away from the little-red-dot for a holiday. However, he couldn’t stray far away from mangroves upon touchdown in The Resplendent Land. He visited two mangrove sites which were physically and biologically different from each other and also to that of Singapore mangroves.

For this post (Part I), we shall highlight the first site that his journey at a  degraded  mangrove and restoration site.

It is located at the outskirts of Chilaw, within the Puttalam-Chilaw lagoons , Northwest of Sri Lanka.

Chilaw, like many parts of Sri Lanka, is rich in biodiversity. Besides  the mangroves, Chilaw-Puttalam lagoons are also famous for blue whale and dolphin watching, which are all-year round and resident animals in these lagoons.

Upon reaching the mangrove, Rick realized the mangrove vegetation in this site was very different than that of Mandai. Mangrove trees there were generally stunted in height and shrub-like. This observation may match the description of a degraded mangrove site; generally poor-nutrient soil (hence the stunted growth), the patchiness of mangrove species and poor diversity of mangrove species.

Riverine mangrove shrubs at Chilaw

A buta-buta or milky mangrove (Excoecaria agallocha) is easily spotted with its grey bark, uusally, mutliple trunked and  its convulated roots. Its distinguishing feature is that tree barks or damaged leaves releases white sap that may cause temporary blindness, hence the plant is named as buta-buta (blind)

Multiple trunked Buta-buta (Excoecaria agallocha) sighted

The roots of the Buta-buta in this mangrove was extremely convulated

Pointed leaves & small, round and clustered fruits-these secondary features of identifying a Buta-buta

A child posing for the camera in front of the Buta-buta

The second tree species found along the site was a Bakau (Rhizophora tree). Kindly click here to know more Bakau trees.

Ah-ha, Rhizophora tree spotted!

Perhaps it is a Rhizophora apiculata

Most probably a Rhizophora apiculata. Look at the buds

Venturing further away along the river, Rick  spotted a shrimp pond still in operation. Shrimp ponds  are an eye-sore to mangrove conservationists because mangroves are usually cleared out by shrimp farmers for short-term shrimp farming and they are usually abandoned after that.  Kindly click here to read up  more about the impacts of shrimp farming.

A shrimp pond adjacent to the river

A shrimp pond farmer showing his catch for the day

Shrimps caught in a tray net submerged in the pond

Given that an operational shrimp pond is located  only meters away from another mangrove site,  is there any hope for this mangroves of Chilaw? Yes, UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) is carrying several mangrove restoration in this site(pictured below). However, there is a need to better law enforcement and better governance in order protect mangrove areas from destruction in the first place. Education pertaining to the importance of mangroves would play a vital role to conserve mangroves for its many benefits.

Mangrove restoration by UNDP ongoing at the site

Next post will be Part II of Rick’s mangrove journey at Maduganga river! Be sure to catch the next post and other exciting news posts from this blog! Thank you!

“The first policy framework outlining activities needed to include coastal marine areas such as mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrasses into the work of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has been presented in a report by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and Conservation International (CI).”

If you have read previous blog on “Mangrove as carbon sink“, you will understand how important mangrove as a carbon sink! (yeah, it rhymes..)

With this knowledge, how can we left mangrove out of the  blue carbon policy? Scientists are including all the coastal marine ecosystem into the first action plan of blue carbon!

This mean that people are taking the importance of mangroves more seriously and a political framework like this will certainly helps!

More on the news of “First action plan for world’s blue carbon policy“

This website shows the aboriginal mangrove use.

Most of the species listed could be found in Singapore shore too. However, the application of the medical use of mangrove on the website was not encouraged. Please don’t try that at home.

Anyway, some extra information for food use, “cooking with mangroves” recipe! Cool!

But…for your information, collection of mangrove propagules in Singapore nature reserves is illegal. Quote my Singaporean friend’s word, “like that, got money also cannot eat lah!”

Perhaps this is a sign of species zonation in Mandai? There needs to be more work done to conclude the observation?

Well, there’s still a long way more to complete the vegetation survey. The ultimate goal: to map every SINGLE tree in Mandai. Perhaps another 10,000 more trees to be mapped?  For now, Rick will be mapping trees within specific 10-metre wide transects perpendicular  to the shoreline in Mandai to  accommodate the timeline for his thesis.

The transects are 200m apart, namely denoted A1 to A4. The fifth transect (orange transect line but not labelled in the figured above) is the first transect to be completed, as shown the earlier figure.  The yellow color pins denote the benchmarks for total station.

Estimated date to complete mapping the vegetation in transects : End of February 2012.

Will he be able to complete this in time?….. We’ll see and we are looking forward to see the outcome of this cool project!

Keep up your good work, Rick!

I’m sure the Indiana Jones-wannabe will ‘rope’ the Geog students to his attention with his ‘whip’! Yee-haw!And hopefully he will persuade a  horde of students to be part of  the Mangrove Mafia group by the end of the semester!

Perhaps it is time to address him with a new nickname,  the Mangrove Maestro!

We wish you all the best with your new job!

Staff profile –> http://ap3.fas.nus.edu.sg/fass/geofd/

What is carbon sink?  Carbon sink can be summarized with the following cartoon picture

Forests and oceans absorb carbon dioxide gas released from natural respiration and anthropogenic processes. Picture courtesy of Climate Change North.ca

Highlights of the article

• Mangrove plants and their muddy terrains  can store fives times more carbon compared to their terrestrial counterparts i.e. tropical forests
• IUCN has mentioned that mangrove forests should be included in REDD+

Kindly read rest of the article from: mangrove_carbon_straits_dec11

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! =)

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

“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