Bringing Back the Mangroves of Selvan Bay

Twenty years ago, the coastline of Selvan Bay was lined with shrimp ponds. Large areas of mangrove forest had been cleared in the 1980s to make way for aquaculture, and for a time the ponds brought good incomes to local families. But within a decade, many of the ponds had been abandoned. Disease spread quickly among the crowded shrimp, and without the protection of the trees, storms washed away banks and flooded nearby villages.

In 2008 a coastal restoration group called Tidewell began working with fishing communities to bring the mangroves back. Their first attempts were disappointing. Volunteers planted thousands of seedlings in neat rows on open mudflats, but most were pulled out by waves or buried by silt within a year. According to the project's director, Ana Leuwen, the team had made a basic mistake: "We were planting where we wanted trees to grow, not where the trees wanted to grow."

The group changed its approach. Instead of planting seedlings directly, workers began by repairing the flow of water. Channels were cut through the walls of old ponds so that the tide could move in and out freely again. Once the natural water level had been restored, mangrove seeds carried by the tide from surviving forests began to settle and take root by themselves. Planting was used only in places where no natural seeds arrived.

The results were striking. Within six years, more than 400 hectares of mangrove had returned, and the survival rate of young trees rose from about 20 per cent to over 70 per cent. The cost per hectare was also much lower, because fewer seedlings had to be raised in nurseries.

The benefits have gone beyond the trees. Fishermen report larger catches of crabs, which shelter among the roots, and a community cooperative now sells honey produced by bees that feed on mangrove flowers. Local schools take part in monitoring, with students measuring tree height and counting birds from a wooden boardwalk.

Tidewell has also learned the importance of land ownership. In the early years, some families were unwilling to open their ponds because they feared losing their legal claim to the land. The group worked with the district office to produce written agreements, which guarantee that families keep their rights even if their ponds return to forest.