Fight earths carbon halo by saying hello to halophytes

Three decades ago, while garnering supporters for Greenpeace I naively went into a pub where a group of local yokels felt that mangroves should be turned into something useful like sports fields.

Fifteen years ago, a new property owner complained to council that mangroves were trapping rubbish and attracting crocodiles (but really it was about losing sea views) even though they bought the property with the view already blocked (NIMBY syndrome). On another occasion, a citizen made a similar complaint when their property abutted a marine lake, and mangroves established by their seawall. After pointing out that there was no long-shore drift or a nearby drainage outfall I asked when they did landscaping did they create the ‘island’ at the bottom of their garden? A bright red face answered!

Halophytes (hello fights) are salt tolerant plants such as mangroves, sedges and seagrasses, that not only absorb carbon during photosynthesis but have significant benefits for coastal protection. After the South East Asian Tsunami in 2004, only villages that had retained mangroves survived intact. Given IPCC predicted global average sea level rise (1m by 2100), increased storm tide inundation and salt water intrusion, it makes sense that ecological disaster risk reduction (ecoDRR), as recognised under the Sendai Framework 2015, has a more significant role to play in nature-based resilience building. Billions of dollars of so-called Green Funds are being established to fund climate mitigation and adaptation infrastructure, or renewable energy technologies and hard infrastructure investment. Which begs the question whether it’s really about economic indenture rather than enabling poorer countries to meet climate heightened disasters.

EcoDRR using cheaper and naturally beneficial capital provides protection, traps erosion sediments, stabilises ‘soils’, aquatic nurseries, and sustainable food and wood resources. With the economic repercussions from the Covid Pandemic impacting poorer countries in particular, the funding for replanting forests in general, as happened during the Depression, and mangroves in particular, is critical.

Developing countries have blindly cleared forests over the last century and ironically created land suitable for mangroves, sterilisation by salinization (salt intrusion) of soils and destroying wetlands and freshwater resources. Now is the perfect time to re-establish/regenerate/rehabilitate/renew natural systems that unlike hard engineered solutions don’t cost the earth (economically speaking), and provide significant environmental, social, spiritual and cultural benefits for humankind and are more planet kind.