Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Greater pub­lic aware­ness of the im­por­tance of man­groves and their role in en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion is ur­gent­ly need­ed, says Viean­na Tir­ban­ie, Man­grove Con­ser­va­tion Lead with Ecosys­tem Ap­proach. Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at yes­ter­day’s Man­grove Fes­ti­val at Fe­lic­i­ty Pres­by­ter­ian School in Ch­agua­nas, Tir­ban­ie un­der­scored the eco­log­i­cal and so­cio-eco­nom­ic val­ue of these coastal forests.

Tir­ban­ie found­ed Ecosys­tem Ap­proach five years ago to fo­cus on man­grove man­age­ment and so­cio-eco­log­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion. This year marked the third an­nu­al Man­grove Fes­ti­val, which brings to­geth­er con­ser­va­tion groups, com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers, and the pub­lic to share knowl­edge and pro­mote stew­ard­ship.

She point­ed to cli­mate change—man­i­fest­ing in sea-lev­el rise, ex­treme weath­er events, and chang­ing rain­fall pat­terns—along­side hu­man pres­sures such as agri­cul­ture ex­pan­sion, pol­lu­tion, and un­reg­u­lat­ed con­struc­tion, as the pri­ma­ry threats to man­grove ecosys­tems.

“Our biggest chal­lenge is bridg­ing the gap be­tween gov­ern­ment re­search and com­mu­ni­ty ac­tion,” Tir­ban­ie not­ed.

Ecosys­tem Ap­proach is pro­mot­ing the use of reusable prod­ucts and co­or­di­nat­ing clean-up dri­ves to re­duce the vol­ume of waste en­ter­ing the Ca­roni Swamp, T&T’s largest man­grove wet­land. Span­ning more than 5,600 hectares, the swamp is not on­ly a crit­i­cal nurs­ery for ma­rine species and a sanc­tu­ary for the scar­let ibis—T&T’s na­tion­al bird—but al­so a ma­jor car­bon sink, se­ques­ter­ing sig­nif­i­cant amounts of green­house gas­es and mit­i­gat­ing the ef­fects of cli­mate change.

Dave Seer­am, an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the Fe­lic­i­ty Char­lieville Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, stressed that man­groves are es­sen­tial for lo­cal fish­eries and food se­cu­ri­ty. While he ac­knowl­edged that some ar­eas have been de­grad­ed, oth­ers re­main healthy. His or­gan­i­sa­tion is ac­tive­ly col­lect­ing and plant­i­ng man­grove seeds to sup­port nat­ur­al re­gen­er­a­tion.

The fes­ti­val al­so fea­tured par­tic­i­pa­tion from the TT Field Nat­u­ral­ists’ Club and the Unit­ed Na­tions, of­fer­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al ma­te­ri­als on bio­di­ver­si­ty con­ser­va­tion, sus­tain­able coastal man­age­ment, and cli­mate re­silience strate­gies.

Glob­al­ly and lo­cal­ly, com­mu­ni­ty-based con­ser­va­tion has emerged as a key ap­proach to pro­tect­ing man­grove forests. Such ini­tia­tives place lo­cal res­i­dents at the heart of de­ci­sion-mak­ing, en­sur­ing that tra­di­tion­al knowl­edge com­ple­ments sci­en­tif­ic re­search. In T&T, these grass­roots ef­forts are in­creas­ing­ly recog­nised as vi­tal to safe­guard­ing coastal ecosys­tems against the dual threats of en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and cli­mate change.