Mangrove forests are one of the most productive and biodiverse wetlands on earth.   Yet, these unique coastal tropical forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world. They may be disappearing more quickly
than inland tropical rainforests, and so far, with little public notice.  Growing in the intertidal areas and estuary mouths between land and sea, mangroves provide critical habitat for a diverse marine and terrestial flora and fauna. Healthy mangrove forests are key to a healthy marine ecology.

However, in many areas of the world, mangrove deforestation is contributing to fisheries declines, degradation of clean water supplies, salinization of coastal soils, erosion, and land subsidence, as well as the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In fact, mangrove forests fix more carbon dioxide per unit area than phytoplankton in tropical oceans.

Mangrove forests once covered 3/4 of the coastlines of tropical and sub-tropical countries. Today, less than 50% remain, and of this remaining forest, over 50% is degraded and not in good form. There needs be greater protection of primary or high quality mangrove sites, otherwise, this total remaining area will continue to decrease.

Many factors contribute to mangrove forest loss, including the charcoal and timber industries, oil exploitation, urban growth pressures, and mounting pollution problems. However, one of the most recent and significant causes of mangrove forest loss in the past decade has been the consumer demand for luxury shrimp, or "prawns", and the corresponding expansion of destructive production methods of export-oriented industrial shrimp aquaculture. Vast tracts of mangrove forests have been cleared to make way for the establishment of coastal shrimp farm facilities. The failure of national governments to adequately regulate the shrimp industry, and the headlong rush of multilateral lending agencies to fund aquaculture development without meeting their own stated ecological and social criteria, are other important pieces to this unfortunate puzzle.  Meanwhile, the previous destructive patterns-- both environmental and social-- continue to be repeated in "new frontier" shrimp countries of Latin America, Africa & the Pacific Islands.

The great earnings of shrimp culture are short-lived, while the real costs in terms of consequent environmental ruin and social disruption are long-term and astronomical!   While the immediate profits from shrimp farming may satisfy a few, vast numbers of coastal residents, once dependent on healthy coastal ecosystems for fishing and farming, are being displaced and impoverished.

MAP is dedicated to reversing the degradation of mangrove forest ecosystems worldwide. Its central tenet is to promote the rights of local coastal peoples, including fishers and farmers, in the sustainable management of coastal environs. MAP provides four essential services to grassroots associations and other proponents of mangrove conservation:

1. It coordinates a unique international NGO network and information clearinghouse on mangrove forests
2. It promotes public awareness of mangrove forest issues
3. It develops technical and financial support for NGO projects and
4. MAP helps publicize within the developed nations the basic needs and struggles of Third World coastal fishing and farming communities affected by the consumer demands of the wealthy nations. (This we do through our quarterly newsletter, bi-weekly news bulletins, action
   alerts, and published articles, as well as planned public forums and presentations.)

MAP's international network has grown to include over 400 NGOs and over 250 scientists and academics from 60 nations on five continents. We are currently expanding the effectiveness of our coalition work by solidifying our ties with other major environmental and activist groups in both the
Southern and Northern Hemispheres. Through its wide network, MAP is stimulating the exchange of ideas and information for mangrove forest protection and restoration. Also, MAP promotes effective regulations and enforcement to ensure sustainable shrimp aquaculture practices which
include participatory coastal resource management, responsible consumer choices, and strategies for the implementation of these and other solutions.

Since its founding in 1992, The Mangrove Action Project has grown steadily to become a respected member of the global environmental movement. MAP has effectively put the internet to best use in helping to establish international links and action-oriented plans. MAP has been involved in mangrove restoration projects, advocacy work and public educational events. When MAP first started, we tried to spotlight the problems affecting both the coastal ecology and local communities. To do so, we had to effectively become whistle blowers against the shrimp aquaculture industry, spotlighting the destructive expansion of this unsustainable enterprise.

MAP now publishes two important news bulletins:

• The Late Friday News is a bi-weekly electronic news bulletin which
  reaches over a thousand subscribers worldwide.

• The MAP Quarterly News is a hard copy of the related news which we mail
  out to over 1500 of our subscribers in 60 nations.

Please check out the Mangrove Action Project's website:
http://www.earthisland.org/map/map.html. This site is an excellent
informational resource, with many informative articles.

Your Help Is Needed, Now!

What we do to this Earth, we do to ourselves, for all things great and
small are inter-connected-- woven into that fragile web we call life. Yet,
now on this planet there is a great unravelling of that web taking place,
and we may be living in the time of the greatest extinction since the
disappearance of the dinosaurs.

There is a great need for more of us to become "activated," and to take on
those most important challenges that face us today. What we achieve, or
fail to achieve, today will determine what kind of world we will live in
tomorrow, what kind of world we will leave for our children and our
children's children. A world without mangrove forests-- without the roots
of the sea-- is a world without the diversity of life which the mangroves
protect and engender. It is a world diminished.

Now, the mangrove forests and all the life they sustain need our help.
Please join us!

Become a subscribing member of Mangrove Action Project, and receive our
quarterly newsletter. Annual membership is $35 for families, $25 for
individuals, $15 for students and low income, and $100 for organizations.

Alfredo Quarto, Executive Director
Mangrove Action Project
P.O. Box 1854
Port Angeles, WA 98362-0279         USA

Reproduced with permission from Alfredo Quarto, Mangrove Action Project