Community volunteers to restore mangrove forests
By: Jan Khaskheli
Karachi: Shakil Memon, a young mangrove planter, is confident about the rehabilitation of depleted forests along the scattered islands of Thatta district. He has formed a group of community volunteers called ecoguards to collect plants from nearby forests and replant the same along the island’s villages with the help of local community.
“I frequently visit nearby islands with some community volunteers and hold meetings with area elders to increase my knowledge about mangroves. They know how to plant mangroves. They are aware of its significance as a barrier to natural disasters. They narrate to me how one time thick forests have depleted fast from the area,” he said.
He was born to a tailor, Abdul Rashid, in the Keti Bunder town. On July 15, 2009, Memon helped a team of 300 mangrove planters in the plantation of 450,000 plants near Keti Bunder to set world record of highest mangroves planted in one day.
Sharing this information, he said: “Out of the 300 planters, majority belonged to Riverine forests and did not know how to plant mangroves. They were employees of the forest department and just took the day-long trip, instead of showing sincerity to the cause. That was why the majority of plants could not survive the three-year period.”
Now he leads a community based organisation (CBO), comprising mostly of mangroves planters belonging to nearby islands.
They are on a task to collect plants from forest areas and replant the same where the community people reside. They have reasons to fear natural disasters as they receive frequent warnings of cyclones and tsunamis.
Though Memon has been associated with some leading organisations working for mangroves plantation he has realised that these institutions do not have incentives to work for them. Memon has also formed a separate community for women volunteers to plant mangroves along their villages.
“Our CBO team has covered 300 hectares of land by planting mangroves. Each 100 hectare needs 100,000 plants. We are working with the community. We declared the Kharyoon Island village a no-cutting zone. Our ecoguards frequently visit it and have found the local people cooperative.”
He rejected the notion that the community people destroyed plants, saying these people were natural conservationists. He said he had identified five island villages for mangroves plantation with the communities.
Earlier, the Indus Delta was the seventh largest deltas of the world with 600,000 hectares mangrove cover. But gradually it was depleted and reduced to 80,000 hectares. Now the Sindh forest department figure shows mangroves forests exist on 10, 5000 hectares, which have been planted by the provincial government, IUCN, WWF and CBOs.
Ghulam Qadir Shah, Coordinator Natural Resources Management for International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN), also said the community participation is indispensable for sustainable plantation of mangroves. He said IUCN was going to launch the Mangroves for Future project next year with the involvement of community. They have incentives for the local communities.
Though there is no exact data of the loss, activists said that the sea intrusion had taken away more than 2.2 million acres of fertile land, causing displacement of local communities and destruction of mangrove forests in the Thatta and Badin districts.
There are two main mangroves species along 1050-km long Pakistan coast, which include Rhizophora and Avicennia Marina.
Ghulam Qadir Shah, a researcher and trainer for climate change impacts, said these mangroves had the capacity to store carbon gases three times more than other trees. In his understanding, Avicennia species having 12-year old plants have a capacity to store 44 tons of carbon per hectare while Rhizophora stores 25 ton carbon per hectare. This shows Pakistan’s potential to contribute more in avoiding negative impacts.
The campaigners of mangroves conservation demand the release of at least 33 million acre feet (maf) water through downstream Kotri to save Indus Delta and other natural resources as two million people depend on the Delta for livelihoods, fish catch, cultivation and animal grazing.
Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum Chairperson Mohammed Ali Shah, who leads the struggle for mangroves conservation, said trend of urbanisation increased since 1986, when wide areas of mangroves forests were depleted in the name of development.
He also claims to have opposed two major projects to be constructed with foreign funding that is the Diamond Bar Islands City planned on 12,000 hectares of mangroves land and Sugarland City in the other part of the city’s coastland. The projects have been delayed but the campaigners are still unsure about the government’s decision.
Shah, belonging to a coastal community himself, is an eyewitness to the rapid depletion of mangrove forests in the name of development and urbanisation. He said more than 4, 000 fishing boats move daily from the proposed government-designed project to the creeks for fishing.
He said it was not only a loss to the community people, but actually a loss to world communities struggling to conserve forests that avert disasters and destruction.
“We have started a campaign to safeguard the livelihood of two million fishermen who depend on marine fishing. In fact, environment conservation is the main part of the campaign, which is still going on,” he added.
He said these mangroves were not only natural shields to avert cyclone and tsunamis but also breeding grounds for commercially important fish species, shrimps etc. These must be protected by initiating policy guidelines for developers, community and government institutions.
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