Antara News, Tuesday, November 30, 2010 19:07 WIB
Bogor (ANTARA News) - Half of Indonesia`s mangrove forests are heavily damaged and facing total destruction due to ecological problems, an expert said here Tuesday.
Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) mangrove expert Professor Cecep Kusmana said most of Indonesia`s mangrove forests were in critical condition because of ecological disturbances.
Cecep hoped the government, the Forestry Ministry in particular, would undertake an emergency response to save the mangrove forests as they were on the brink of complete destruction.
"The threat to our mangrove forests is very concerning and they will vanish if we don?t act now," Cecep said.
The precarious conditions of the country`s mangrove forests needed to be addressed through serious actions by the central government , the Forestry Ministry and all stakeholders, he said.
The governments of regions where the mangroves were located also had an important role to play in saving them as they were the local policy makers.
"Local governments and the Forestry Ministry are expected to work together to stop further damage to mangrove forests," he said.
On the occasion, Professor Cecep also introduced the "Guludan" technique to save mangrove forests, which was considered as the appropriate technology to revitalize heavily damaged and critical forest areas.
The Guludan technique was mainly done by using a bamboo pole that planted deep in the mangrove areas and formed as a square partition with adjustable size.
In the research, the proper square measurement was done by 4 four meters wide, six meters long and two meters deep into the mangrove`s soil.
These Guludan must be filled with bags full of dirt on the bottom and then piled with approximately 50 centimeters high dirt on the top as the plant`s medium.
After the structure is built, mangrove sprouts can now be planted at a certain distance from each other.
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These maps show the location and relative density of mangroves, which cover roughly 137,760 square kilometers (53,190 square miles) of Earth’s surface. The forests can be found in 118 different countries and territories, though nearly 75 percent of their area occurs in just 15 countries. They are most often found straddling the equator between 25ยบ North and South latitude. About 42 percent of the world’s mangroves are found in Asia, with 21 percent in Africa, 15 percent in North and Central America, 12 percent in Australia and the islands of Oceania, and 11 percent in South America. |
