Mangrove Forests and the Conservation Debate
By Ali Hasan Cemendtaur
CA
A while back in Karachi one of my diehard environmentalist, journalist friends offered me a trip to the mangrove forests near our metropolis, i.e., whatever of those forests was left. I am not sure what the plan was, but somehow it did not work out and I missed my chance of seeing Pakistani mangroves. I had seen mangroves in Bangladesh, but at that time I was not aware of either their peculiarity or their benefits. So back in December, while visiting the island of Hispaniola when a chance of visiting a thriving mangrove forest came up, I knew how angry that Karachi friend would be with me if I missed the opportunity to see that natural wonder.
Now all of us know this much geography that the Caribbean island of Hispaniola is divided between the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and that Hispaniola was one of the first islands in North America where Christopher Columbus landed in his quest to find a short route to India from Europe. I was in Hispaniola primarily to visit Hait . And I visited Haiti because I pay special attention to the US State Department's travel warnings — I go where these warnings advise me not to go. Haiti was a must-see because the State Department had a strong warning against going to Haiti. But the opportunity to see a mangrove forest did not come up in Haiti; it was the Dominican Republic where the large Parque Nacional Los Haitises boasted of an intact mangrove forest along with a few other attractions. It was virtually impossible to visit that National Park on your own, so we booked a tour with a travel company. The National Park was a short drive and a half-an-hour boat ride away from Las Terrenas, a small town where we were staying.
The boat picked up speed on leaving the marina and Parque Nacional Los Haitises, on the other side of the bay, started coming closer to us. From a distance the park looked like an impenetrable lush green forest. As we got closer its geography started taking shape in the form a green coastline and many small islands.
Our first stop in the National Park was at a small fishing harbor. But before making the stop the boat went into a cave as far as it could go and then turned around when the sloping roof of the cave made further advance impossible. There was only one fishing boat at the harbor. We looked at the catch and then strolled the little beach.
The island of Hispaniola was inhabited by Tiano Indians when Columbus discovered the new world. Parque Nacional Los Haitises has many caves where Tiano Indians had drawn paintings on the walls. We stopped at several of those caves to see the Indian paintings. And then finally came the best attraction of the tour: a close look at the mangrove forest.
Our boat slowly traversed creeks that were lined by magnificent mangroves on both sides. Our untrained eyes could not tell the difference between the trees but our guide told us we were looking at different kinds of mangroves including White, Black, and Red. I wondered about the coil shaped roots of mangroves. Is that an adoption to living in a tidal environment where water level rises and falls, and the coil shaped roots make sure the tree keeps its attachment to the seabed?
As the motor of the fiberglass boat sputtered at low speed, I thought about how human beings' capacity to destroy the natural world has increased tremendously after the Industrial Revolution. The tools of destruction we have are formidable: you can gun down each and every animal of any species in a relatively short time, if you are inclined to do so; with your modern logging machines you can cut down miles after miles of forest relatively quickly. To restrain our capacity to destroy the natural world requires wisdom.
Going through the development phase countries that presently constitute the 'developed world' did a lot of damage to their environment. Today, the same countries are the protectors of not only their environment but also want to have their say about the natural world around the globe. Developing countries may argue that they need to exploit nature just as the developed countries of today did in their infancy. Unfortunately, whereas the argument may be tenable, the idea is not viable. Human beings have reached a point where further damage to our environment will bring catastrophic effects to all of us — in case we have not already crossed that threshold. Air and water flow freely across national borders; the trees of Amazon do not just produce oxygen for Brazil; they clean up air for all inhabitants of this planet.
A UN study titled "In the Front Line" delineates the economic benefits of reefs and mangroves. You can see that report here:
http://www.unep.org/pdf/infrontline_06.pdf
The UN study estimates that a square kilometer of mangrove forest provides an economic benefit of around $1 million per year. So, you can destroy a mangrove forest of one square kilometer and sell the wood for, say, $100,000, but by doing so you would in fact be losing $900,000 the first year and around $1 million for the following years. The message is obvious. Don't destroy your steady income, save your mangrove forests. But in most parts of the world the economic interests derived from sea are so divided between various parties that the poor mangrove forest is not finding a timely advocate, for its survival. Imagine a place with mangroves where there is only one contractor fishing the waters; imagine that the contractor is thinking about logging the mangrove forest. Reading the UN study, the contractor would understand that by cutting the mangrove forest he would be destroying his steady source of fishing income because by removing the mangroves he would lose the nurseries where fish hatch. But in real world the beneficiaries of steady income from the mangrove forests are not the same people who cut the forest and sell the wood. And since the fishermen cannot directly challenge the loggers, the state has to act and become an intermediary in this classic example of conflicting economic interests. Governments run by wise people see what is good for the whole community in the long run, instead of allowing acts that might be beneficial for a few in the short run.
But more than any economic advantage to anyone, for the vast majority of ordinary people the benefit of a mangrove forest is of its being a part of the kaleidoscope of awe-inspiring beauty and immense diversity in flora and fauna that our planet holds. We have inherited this Earth from people who lived before us. Our environment is a gift that has been passed on from one generation to another, pretty much intact. To destroy this heirloom and give a blemished present to the generations coming after us seems grossly immoral.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
