Mangroves: The Unsung Heroes of Coastal Ecosystems
A mangrove is either a shrub or a small tree that generally grows in coastal saline or brackish water. Mangroves support coastal communities from all over the world, but pollution and deforestation are threats to these important ecosystems. Mangrove forest areas across the world have a variation in the level of pollution, but the situation is worsening. Mangroves are often used for dumping waste, including plastics that do not biodegrade, harming both these ecosystems and the species living there. It is high time we realise that protecting the environment is a need. We need to protect the environment by replanting mangroves in our communities that we had once cut down. Science (evolution of technology) aids us to address the problem and helps us find solutions. This is the importance of mangroves essay.
Mangroves have a lot of advantages. Firstly, Mangroves protect the shorelines from natural disasters like damaging storms and hurricane winds, waves, and floods. These act as a buffer between the land and the sea. Thirdly, the mangrove swamps that we humans have cut down are home to many other organisms. Next, mangroves aid by preventing erosion and by reducing the movement of water by trapping and stabilising sediments with their tangled root systems. Lastly, Mangroves can actually stabilise coastlines and can also reduce the possibilities of storm waves, flooding or growing threats such as Climate Change. As a fact, mangroves can protect many lives during a tsunami. This is proved by stating an example of an event. On the 26th of December 2004, a tsunami hit Sri Lanka. According to the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2 people died in the settlement secured by dense mangroves and scrub forests while approximately 600 people died in the village without similar vegetation.
Several people are supporting this argument. Many organisations and websites agree that replanting mangroves will help the environment and be beneficial for human beings. The replanting of mangroves is surely a need. We should have realised the importance of mangroves earlier as replanting them is a difficult task. But we all can still make a change! Replanting mangroves can help the coming generations a lot. Let’s replant mangroves and save the Earth.
This task is related to the Global Context: Globalisation and Sustainability, an exploration into fragile ecosystems and threats they are facing. The Key Concept related to this task is systems as systems provide structure and order in human, natural and built environments (such as mangroves). The ATL skills developed in this task are Research and Communication skills. I conducted a research to gather information about mangrove swamps to create an informative news article. As mentioned earlier, we also used Communication skills to communicate to our target audience and convey the message about the importance of mangroves and why we need them through means of a newspaper article.
