{"id":32362,"date":"2023-09-04T04:44:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T08:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cbf-trubudget.com\/cbf-shares-their-successes-in-mangrove-restoration-at-costa-rica-meeting\/"},"modified":"2023-09-04T04:44:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T08:44:02","slug":"cbf-shares-their-successes-in-mangrove-restoration-at-costa-rica-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/fr\/cbf-shares-their-successes-in-mangrove-restoration-at-costa-rica-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"CBF Shares their Successes in Mangrove Restoration at Costa Rica Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to recent estimates, the Caribbean mangroves, which emerged 50 million years ago, might disappear in less than a century due to deforestation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mangroves are crucial ecosystems, especially in climate change mitigation and adaptation. They pull carbon down from the atmosphere into their trunks and roots. Additional carbon is stored in mangrove sediments. This carbon may be stored in the soils for hundreds up to thousands of years. With rising temperatures affecting every country across the world, it has never been more important to keep our mangrove systems intact as they can help with our battle to keep global temperatures within the 1.5 degrees target.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mangroves also help with climate adaptation which is incredibly valuable to small island developing states in the Caribbean that are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events such as hurricanes. \u201cAs mangroves build soils that hold carbon from the atmosphere they accrete land\u2014moving up to keep pace with rising sea levels\u2014which reduces flood events for coastal communities. Moreover, mangrove trees which can grow to extraordinary heights, buffer wind and wave energy when hurricanes and storm surges hit to protect coastal communities,\u201d said Steve Canty, Marine Conservation Program Coordinator at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History during a recent Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF) event.<\/span><\/p>\n

Caribbean mangroves comprise close to 26% of the global mangrove cover but unfortunately have declined by 24% in the past 25 years.\u2014United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Due to their close relationship with other ecosystems, such as coral reefs and seagrass beds, mangroves and the ecosystem services they provide are the conservation pillars of coastal ecosystems. Today, mangroves, coral reefs and other coastal ecosystems in the Caribbean provide an estimated value of nearly $15 billion annually in fisheries, tourism recreation and carbon sequestration. Mangroves and seagrass beds together provide around $6.7 billion in ecosystem service benefits.<\/span> Mangroves of the Wider Caribbean region (Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and North Brazil Shelf Large Marine Ecosystems) comprise close to 26% of the global mangrove cover but unfortunately have declined by 24% in the past 25 years.<\/span> With such varied benefits, why are mangroves disappearing three to five times faster than overall global forests?<\/span><\/p>\n

Although climate change and variability contribute to their decline, the greater threats to mangroves disappearance are largely anthropogenic, as they occupy\u00a0 prime real estate and are easily accessible for fuel.\u00a0 According to the OECS, the major threats\u00a0 to mangrove in the Caribbean are as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n