Tsunami: Mangroves 'saved lives'

Dear Sec 3 pupils,

As this week we're studying natural vegetation, I thought I'll put these articles for your reading pleasure. This article is about the importance of Mangroves. It's an interesting read. It helps you understand why we need to protect our mangrove forests because they can saves lives. The detail article can be found here.

Another similar article about how mangroves offers protection can be found here. I'll put a short excerpt for you.

"Ecologists tell us that mangroves provide double protection – the first layer of red mangroves with their flexible branches and tangled roots hanging in the coastal waters absorb the first shock waves. The second layer of tall black mangroves than operates like a wall withstanding much of the sea’s fury. Mangroves in addition absorb more carbon dioxide per unit area than ocean phytoplankton, a critical factor in global warming."

"If only the mangroves were intact, the damage from tsunami would have been greatly minimized. It happened earlier in Bangladesh. In 1960, a tsunami wave hit the coast in an area where mangroves were intact. There was not a single human loss. These mangroves were subsequently cut down and replaced with shrimp farms. In 1991, thousands of people were killed when a tsunami of the same magnitude hit the same region. In Tamilnadu, in south India, Pichavaram and Muthupet with dense mangroves suffered low human casualties and less economic damage from the Dec.26 tsunami. Earlier, the famed mangroves of Bhiterkanika in Orissa (which also serve as the breeding ground for the olive-ridley turtles) had reduced the impact of the ‘super cyclone’ that had struck in Oct 1999, killing over 10,000 people and rendering millions homeless."