Climate Change Threat to Pacific Ocean Mangroves

Coping Strategies for Coastal Zone Managers Outlined in New UNEP-Backed Report

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced today studies indicating that some islands in the region could see over half of the mangroves steadily lost by the end of the century, with the worst hit being American Samoa, Fiji, Tuvalu, and the Federated States of Micronesia.
Action is needed to conserve mangroves in the Pacific amid concern that rising sea levels, linked with climate change, are set to drown large areas of these precious and economically important ecosystems.


The study, which has assessed the vulnerability of the 16 Pacific Island countries and territories that have native mangroves, finds that overall as much as 13 per cent of the mangrove area may be lost. It makes a series of recommendations to coastal planners. These include several adaptation tools, such reducing pollution from land-based sources in order to make existing mangroves more healthy and resilient, alongside restoring lost or degraded mangroves wetlands.

Setting back coastal infrastructure and development to allow mangroves to spread inland may also be possible along some sections of Pacific island coastlines, says the report.
Achim Steiner, UNEP’s Executive Director, said: “Industrialized nations must meet their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, the international emission-reduction treaty, as a first step to the even deeper cuts needed to stabilize the atmosphere”.
“There are many compelling reasons for fighting climate change–the threats to mangroves in the Pacific, and by inference across other low lying parts of the tropics, underline yet another reason to act” he added.
“But there is also an urgent need to help vulnerable communities adapt to the sea level rise which is already underway. This report provides sensible and sound advice on management regimes needed to boost the health and resilience of coastal zones and coastal ecosystems like mangroves in the face of current and future threats,” said Mr Steiner.
The new report, “Pacific Island Mangroves in a Changing Climate and Rising Seas”, has been compiled by the Regional Seas Programme of UNEP, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) based in Apia, Samoa, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council in Honolulu, United States, and well over a dozen additional agencies and organizations from the Pacific Islands region.
They underline that, in common with other terrestrial and marine ecosystems such as coral reefs, mangroves provide an array of valuable goods and services upon which local people and industries like tourism depend.The true economic value of ecosystems like mangroves is now starting to emerge as a result of landmark reports such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the work of some 1,300 scientists and experts.
According to some estimates, the goods and services generated by mangroves may be worth an average of $900,000 per square kilometer, depending on their location and uses. Roughly half the world’s mangrove area has been lost since 1900 as a result of clearances for developments like shrimp farms. 35 per cent of this loss has occurred in the past two decades.