– small players with big roles in the ‘big fight’
WITH the impacts of climate change being increasingly felt and seen, different platforms are being advanced across the globe by some of the biggest names in the public arena. However, the role of the average man, or woman, at the simplest level, is crucial in the ‘big fight’ because they can help nature help us.
In Guyana, emphasis is being placed on the role of the average person in a project that is fast gaining recognition, the Guyana Mangrove Restoration Project (GMRP).
Experts say they can support the effort to protect, manage and restore mangrove forests.

DECEMBER 26, 2004. Silence along the coastline; the Indian Ocean is quiet.
The rush comes just then! The Indian Ocean Tsunami.
It was the proverbial calm before the storm. It was a rapid surging of the ocean, described by witnesses as an extremely powerful river, or a flood of giant waves.
Official reports were that giant forces that had been building up deep in the Earth for hundreds of years were released suddenly shaking the ground violently and unleashing a series of killer waves that sped across the Indian Ocean at the speed of a jet airliner.
The overwhelming waves were as high as 50 feet in some places, according to news reports. The water snatched people out to sea, drowned others in their homes or on beaches and demolished property from Africa to Thailand.
By the end of the day more than 150,000 people were dead or missing and millions more were homeless in 11 countries, making it perhaps the most destructive tsunami in world history.
The epicentre of the 9.0 magnitude quake was under the Indian Ocean near the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), which monitors earthquakes worldwide. The violent movement of sections of the Earth’s crust, known as tectonic plates, displaced an enormous amount of water, sending powerful shock waves every which way.
The year now is 2010 and the devastation of the Indian Ocean tsunami has served as a wake-up call for the world over.
The devastation of lives and economies by the tsunami drew attention to the vulnerability of tropical coastal ecosystems and the dangers of undermining the services these provide to mankind.
These lessons learnt are critically relevant to future management of the coastline and its defences; critical to coastal development.
Locally, the coastal development project takes the form of the $100M, government funded, Guyana Mangrove Restoration Project (GMRP). The overall objective of the project is to abate climate change (carbon sequestration through reforestation and forest preservation) and to mitigate its effects (sea defence, biodiversity).
Guyana signed on to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 and acceded to the Kyoto Protocol in August, 2003.
In 2001, Guyana produced a Climate Change Action Plan and the following year Guyana’s National Climate Change Adaptation Policy and Implementation Strategy for Coastal and Low-lying Areas (2002) was released. Also in 2002, Guyana’s Initial National Communication in Response to its Commitments to the UNFCCC 2002 was completed and the second National Communication to the UNFCCC is being prepared.
Guyana maintains ongoing participation in the UNFCCC Conference of Parties and Scientific Committee meetings and in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific meetings. Guyana has collaborated with regional programmes and institutes on climate change policy and adaptation strategies including: the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), the network of SIDS; the Caribbean Planning for Adaptation to Climate Change (CPACC) project; the Mainstreaming Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC) project; the Rainforest Coalition; and the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC).
The Climate Change Action Plan (NAPA) includes moves to consolidate the legal framework, response and adaptation and mitigation measures, training and public awareness. A new version is in its early stages of preparation.
The most recent national policy document is the Guyana Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), currently in the initial implementation stage, which realigns the whole development of the country on a low carbon path: development of hydroelectric power, sustainable forestry, investment in `low-carbon’ sectors such as fruit, vegetables and aquaculture, low-impact mining and eco-tourism. A central theme of the LCDS is the value of Guyana’s 15 million hectares of rainforest. These are estimated to have an economic value to the world of $40 billion per year, for carbon sequestration, bio-diversity and water regulation, whereas the value to Guyana of the forest through harvesting and use of the land would be $4-23 billion. This “Economic Value to the Nation” is estimated to be equivalent to annual annuity payments to Guyana of $580 million, which would fund the LCDS.
These incentive payments would help prevent deforestation and avoid emissions of 1.5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020.
An important point to note is that mangrove forests have the potential to sequester 17 metric tonnes of carbon per hectare annually and this therefore increases their importance in the climate change fight.
The environmental impact of the investment on the protection, management and restoration of mangrove forests in Guyana is significant.
A recent report based on findings by the Economics of Climate Adaption Working Group indicates that Guyana stands to lose between one and 12 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually and the potential climate-related loss for Georgetown may reach 19 per cent of GDP annually by 2030.
The expected 4.2 degree rise on global temperature during the first half of the century will raise sea levels by 15 to 30 cm by 2040. Some estimates give a higher figure for the Caribbean region.
According to the IPCC 2009, global sea levels are expected to rise by at least one metre by 2100.
The evidence is that the sea level rise in Guyana from 1955 to 2005 was 55cm; substantially more than the global figure. An unconfirmed theory is that this is actually due to depression of the coastal belt by deposition of billions of tons of Amazon sediment. The effect is the same.
With new sea defence structures expected to last 60 years, it is already necessary to design for the projected sea level rise.
Guyana is approximately 0.5 to 1.0 metres below mean sea level and is currently faced with the challenge of draining its coastal waters.
Close to 90 per cent of the population reside on the coast. That is 90 per cent of export and commercial agriculture (one of the main contributors to the country’s GDP) and other operations, industries and the capital
city – Georgetown.
Armed with a National Mangrove Action Plan 2010, stakeholders are working on abating climate change and mitigating its impacts. They are looking to protect, manage and restore Guyana’s mangroves.
The objectives outlined in the National Plan are: to promote sustainable management of mangrove forest; develop effective protection of mangrove ecosystem and rehabilitation; increase public awareness and education on the benefits of the mangrove forests; establish and complete a legal framework for mangrove ecosystem management and encourage community-based mangrove management; and establish the administrative capacity for the management of mangroves in Guyana.
To date there has been tremendous buy in from communities and the private sector. The government has also on occasions reaffirmed its commitment via political will, and the $100M fund, to see the GMRP through.
Under the project, an estimated 11 kilometers of mangrove forests are expected to be restored across Guyana by 2012.
The project is managed by the Mangrove Action Committee (MAC) within the Climate Change and Agricultural Adaptation Unit of Guyana’s National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of Guyana.
Status of Mangroves
Official reports indicate that mangrove ecosystems currently cover 146,530 km of the tropical shorelines of the world. This represents a decline from 198,000 km of mangroves in 1980, and 157,630 km in 1990. These losses represent about two per cent per year between 1980 and 1990, and one per cent per year between 1990 and 2000.
Mangroves in South America currently cover slightly less than 2 million hectares, down from some 2.2 million hectares in 1980.
In Guyana’s case, in the late 18th century, the mangrove belt covered the entire Guyana coastline, except for the main river outlets.
Significant stands of mangroves still exist (over 80,000 hectares in 1992), with the largest intact mangrove system along the Waini-Pomeroon coast.
The total of 370 km of sea defences now includes 80km sea wall and other man-made and defences and the rest is natural. These natural defences, including mangroves forests, are effective in reducing wave energy, trapping sediments and stabilisation of the substrate by the plant roots. Mangroves can be damaged by wave action and are also affected by littoral drift (shoreline migration of silt), accretion and erosion.
A previous project identified the best coastal protection as a long, sloping foreshore leading to mangroves with an earthen dam behind (FAO 1994).
Experience elsewhere, particularly in Asia, has proven the benefits of mangroves for sea defence purposes, as shown during the 2005 tsunami, where mangrove zones provided some protection even against massive wave energy.
Originally, the Guyana mangrove belt was wide enough to recover after erosion periods (a minimum width seems to be about 200 meters), but mangrove destruction allowed erosion cycles to wipe out some of the mangrove belt. Mangrove depletion has been particularly serious in the 20-30 years, especially in Regions Three (West Demerara/ Essequibo Islands) and Four (Demerara/ Mahaica).
Mangrove forests are still threatened, but efforts are being made under the project to address this. These efforts have met with success, mainly because of the cooperation of communities.
Some of the reasons why mangroves are disappearing in Guyana are: grazing of mangroves by animals, namely goats, cows and sheep; indiscriminate cutting of trees for fuel wood and poles for fishing nets; pulling of boats through mangroves by fishermen; use of red mangroves in the leather industry; dumping of refuse in the mangrove forests; and natural erosion.
The Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) is undertaking a study, taking an inventory, of the amount of mangrove forests that cover the coastline. Modern Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing technology are being used for this undertaking.
Coordinator and Head of the Climate Change and Agricultural Adaptation Unit, Mr. Bissasar Chintamanie, explained that Guyana is a highly forested country with substantial mangrove belts along the coastal region and river estuaries.
He said mangroves form a unique and dominant ecosystem comprised of intertidal marine plants, mostly trees, predominantly bordering margins of tropical coastlines around the world.
These halophytic (salt tolerant) plants, he noted, thrive in saline conditions and daily inundation between mean sea level and highest astronomical tides, and they provide vital structure as habitat and food for similarly adapted resident and transient fauna.
The Project Coordinator said mangrove plants exchange gases from exposed roots using special lenticels, while flooding tides allow uptake of river-borne nutrients and frequent dispersal by their buoyant propagules (a bud or a spore that becomes detached from the rest and forms a new organism).
He said that the ecological limits defined by the diurnal tidal range explain the setting and why just 70 species around the world are considered to be mangroves, compared with adjacent rainforests that may have hundreds of tree species per hectare.
Specialized morphological and physiological characteristics largely define and characterize mangrove plants, such as buttress trunks and roots providing support in soft sediments, above ground roots allowing vital gas exchange in anaerobic sediments, and physiological adaptations for excluding or expelling salt.
Fewer than 22 plant families have developed such essential attributes, representing independent instances of co-evolution over millions of years to form today’s mangrove habitats.
Mangroves, Chintamanie said, contribute substantially and most importantly, in Guyana’s case, to sea defence by damping wave action and protecting coastal banks, but have degraded by natural and artificial means over the past decades.
However, according to him, Atlantic mangroves, like other mangrove species, are affected by climate change.
The unique physiological characteristics of each species define its capacity for survival in the face of change.
The Project Coordinator said mangroves are expected to respond rapidly and decisively to shifts in key factors, like temperature, rainfall, and sea level, as each species has defined ranges of tolerance for each factor.
For instance, he pointed out that because mangroves are characteristically restricted to elevations between mean sea level and highest tides, as sea level rises, their communities must move upland to survive. This is so since mangroves have narrow optimal temperature ranges, rising temperatures will cause their distributions to shift north or south to areas where temperature conditions are most suitable, and they will die off in areas where they are not suited.
Their success in making these shifts, Chintamanie explained, depends on their successful dispersal and re-establishment, and the availability of suitable new space.
The Project Coordinator made it clear that knowledge of these changes and their causes allows better prediction of future change.
The general consensus among stakeholders is that mangrove conservation and rehabilitation has become a priority of the Government of Guyana, hence the introduction and implementation of the GMRP.
This importance was emphasized in February this year when Agriculture Minister, Mr. Robert Persaud, signed the amended Forestry Act of 2010 that also provides for penalties in the event of mangrove destruction.
Also, at present, under Guyana’s Sea Defence Act of 1998, destruction of mangrove forests carries a fine of $12,000 and a sentence of 12 months imprisonment.
In Guyana there are seven types of mangroves,
but the more popular ones are the Red, Black and White mangroves.
An estimated 35 per cent of the world’s original mangrove cover has already gone, with some countries having lost up to 80 per cent.
Benefits
In recognizing the loss of the mangrove forests, there has also been recognition of the fact that mangroves provide significant benefits and services to humankind, many of which have a high economic value. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005) defines four categories of ecosystem support:
o   Provisioning – food, medicines, construction materials;
o   Cultural – tourism, spiritual beliefs;
o   Supporting – maintenance of basic life support systems; and
o    Regulating – e.g. protection of shorelines, water quality maintenance.
Putting this into the context of Guyana was Mangrove Specialist and Assistant Dean at the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry at the University of Guyana (UG), Mr. Owen Bovell.
Bovell said in Guyana the main use of mangroves fall under two categories, supporting and regulating.
He pointed out that the leather industry here is dependent on the bark of the red mangroves for tannin, which is used to cure leather; hence it assists in maintaining basic life support systems.
“The other way is the protection of our shorelines,” he said, “This falls into the regulating category.”
Commenting on the other two, provision and cultural, the specialist said the mangrove forests of Guyana have much potential.
Relative to provisioning, he made it clear that in Guyana the mangroves are not used for food; however they are, to some extent, a source of medicinal properties.
As for the fourth category, cultural, Bovell said the mangrove forests have great tourism potential, but Guyana unfortunately has not reached that stage.
“The rest of the Caribbean is using the mangrove forests for bird watching and sport fishing, other kinds of tourism activities. We are hoping to get there,” he said.
He further pointed out that Guyana has more mangrove forests than the other Caribbean countries.
“There is money to be made from our mangrove forests,” Bovell posited.
He added that in Region One (Barima/Waini) efforts to pursue this will be more favourable since the forests there are more pristine and suited to tourism.
To this end, the specialist said, “Restoration is where we have to go.”
He explained that Guyana, a small developing country, cannot afford its man-made sea defences, the hard structures – sea walls. According to him, one meter of hard structures to defend the coastline costs approximately G$600,000, whereas planting mangroves do the same job at a much, much lower cost.
“The cost is too high so we have to look at alternatives. With the soft structures, the mangroves, we have an ecosystem that provides a number of things; it defends the coastline and provides a number of other services,” Bovell said.
He added that there are also inherent benefits to be got if efforts are made to protect, manage and restore mangrove forests.
Among these inherent benefits is the fact that mangrove forests provide refuge for juvenile fish, shrimp and crab located on Guyana’s coastline.
Bovell maintained that all things considered, restoration is a must.
Restoration of Nature
Chintamanie told the Guyana Chronicle that the approach to restore the mangrove will be Ecosystem Protection and Rehabilitation (EPR).
Following the EPR approach, he explained that step one will be to understand which mangrove species belongs at a particular site and what conditions it needs to grow successfully.
After that, Chintamanie said the next moves will be to understand the existing conditions at the site and to figure out what is preventing the normal growth of the mangrove trees.
He said, “When we understand these things, we can amend the site condition so that they meet the needs of the mangroves and only plant new mangroves if re-growth is not occurring.”
Chintamanie pointed out that Regions One, Two (Pomeroon/ Supenaam), Three (West Demerara. Essequibo Islands), Four (Demerara/Mahaica), Five (Mahaica/Berbice) and Six (East Berbice/Corentyne) are identified as sites for mangrove restoration projects.
Replanting schemes in Matang, Malaysia (Chan, 1996), Thailand (Fast and Menasveta, 2003) and East Africa (Kairo et al., 2001) have reportedly been successful, although rehabilitated mangroves often lack their full biodiversity and ecological processes (Ellison, 2000).
Many of the Asian countries affected by the 2004 tsunami have embarked on ambitious replanting programmes which are nevertheless a first step.
Indonesia, for example, has initiated a four year operation to plant 150,000 hectares of mangroves along the coast of Aceh where 300,000 hectares of mangroves were destroyed.
Chintamanie said the local effort is guided by five basic principles, recognized as emerging restoration principles.
They are:
1. Get the hydrology right first;
2. Do not build a nursery, grow mangroves and just plant some area currently devoid of mangroves (like a convenient mudflat). There is a reason why mangroves are not already there or were not there in the recent past or have disappeared recently. Find out why;
3. Once you find out why, see if you can correct the conditions that currently prevent natural colonization of the selected mangrove restoration site. If you cannot correct those conditions, pick another site;
4. Use a reference mangrove site for examining normal hydrology for mangroves in your particular area. Either install tide gauges and measure the tidal hydrology of a reference mangrove forest or use the surveyed elevation of a reference mangrove forest floor as a surrogate for hydrology, and establish the same range of elevations at your restoration site or restore the same hydrology to an impounded mangrove by breaching the dikes in the right places. The ‘right places’ are usually the mouths of historic tidal creeks. These are often visible in vertical (preferred) or oblique aerial photographs; and
5. Remember that mangrove forests do not have flat floors. There are subtle topographic changes that control tidal flooding depth, duration and frequency. Understand the normal topography of your reference forest before attempting to restore another area.
Community Involvement
Bovell said the public awareness component of the GMRP will be strengthened in an effort to ensure that people feel a sense of attachment to the project.
He said restoration must be supported by the community or there is a possibility of failure.
“The community has to be involved. They must take ownership of this project. It has to be seen as their project. This is the key to success,” he said.
The Specialist said with the GMRP the locals will be involved in the planting of mangrove trees, the monitoring and reporting of the planting and related activities.
Bovell said, “We do not want to have a project without the community’s involvement…these are coastal people and what happens to that coast is their business, what happens to the mangroves is their business.”
He added that at the grassroots level there has to be active participation as well as an awareness of what is happening.
Four main groups are currently targeted for involvement in the project — the community members, students from the University of Guyana (UG), students from the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) and project staff.
To date, experimental planting has been ongoing at Lima and La Belle Alliance in Region Two and GSA students have been involved in this process.
Bovell explained that as technical people, the UG/GSA students need to be in the know as it relates to mangrove restoration.
“Mangrove restoration and management will soon become part of the curriculum at GSA as well as UG,” he said.
The specialist pointed out that initial sites for replanting are located in Region
Four at Mon Repos and at Hope, East Coast Demerara.
The replanting effort is expected to begin next month and both communities are expected to be fully involved.
“The impact of one person’s role cannot be overestimated,” he said. “When you plant one tree you can contribute to carbon sequestration, one tree.”
Bovell said getting involved is one step in the bigger fight, an important step that impacts significantly when considering the bigger picture.
Former United States Vice President Albert Arnold ‘Al’ Gore Jr., Prince Charles of Wales, Actor Harrison Ford, United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Guyana’s own President Bharrat Jagdeo are among the many in the ‘big fight’.
However, as important as their roles are, so are those of the small players who also have key roles to play.
Climate change, more clearly, the impact of this phenomenon is here. It is not coming 10 or five years or even two years from now.
It is here and individual actions can go a long way to determining the success of a fight that crosses borders.
Individual actions define the big roles being undertaken by small players in the ‘big fight’.