In the Rufiji Delta in Tanzania, Wetlands International and its partners are restoring mangroves using a novel, inclusive and much more effective approach.
Globally, tens of millions of Euros have been spent on mangrove restoration in recent years, but the majority of these restoration projects have failed. With success rates ranging between 15 to 20 percent, a lot of conservation funding has gone to waste. This is the result of
using inadequate restoration techniques and a failure to resolve socio-economic and institutional barriers to effective restoration.
In recent years, experts from the Mangrove Action Project have piloted the so-called Community Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration
(CBEMR) Approach. Rather than relying on active tree planting, this approach focuses on creating the enabling environmental conditions
for natural recovery in sites that have been disturbed by human interference.
This is achieved by implementing measures that restore hydrology, sediment dynamics and soil conditions. Planting is only applied when necessary; for example, in the absence of a nearby seedstock that supports natural mangrove recruitment. Beyond introducing technically sound restoration approaches, the CBEMR approach also addresses socio-economic factors that compromise long-term sustainability
of mangrove restoration and constrain implementation at a landscape scale.
Wetlands International first put this approach into practice in Cacheu National Park, Guinea Bissau, where it restored a total of 200 ha of mangroves in three years. Of these, 60 ha of mangroves were established through planting, while 140 ha were restored through the
CBEMR approach. Whereas planting projects yielded mixed results, the CBEMR measures demonstrated a rapid recovery of enabling environmental conditions and a mangrove recolonisation rate that was faster than expected.
Read the full article: To plant or not to plant. Insights from mangrove restoration in Rufiji Delta