About Mangroves
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Mangroves are a family of about 70 different species of trees found around the world. Mangroves grow only in the tropics and mainly in coastal areas. Mangrove forests have an important function in our ecosystem as natural coastal protection; the extended root systems of every mangrove tree are a nursery. Last but not least, mangroves produce a lot of organic material to feed the reefs next door! Most mangroves grow extremely slow and, while standing in salt or brackish water, the trees need fresh water. These amazing trees have managed to find the perfect solution: they make their own fresh water out of seawater. In the past, mangrove were considered useless swamps, so many governments, nature preservation organizations, and scientists were not really that interested in protecting and researching the mangrove forests. And, in the short span of only about fifteen years, mangroves became one of the most endangered landscapes our planet lost about 50% of all mangrove forests. Why would this happen? There are more people on our planet, especially in the tropics, and many of them are moving to coastal areas. More coastal developments, such as industry, tourism, or intensive shrimp farming, did a lot of damage worlwide. The tsunami of December 2004 showed the world that mangroves are most important for natural coastal protection. On satellite images we could see clearly that where mangroves had been destroyed, the damage was more serious and many more people lost their lives because their natural coastal protection was gone.
Now the world has learned more about the importance of mangrove forests, and countries like Indonesia are now planning to reforest their coastal areas. Here on Bonaire, our mangroves continue to thrive.
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The Mangrove Information
Center Kaminda Lac #140 |
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