Gabon plumbs carbon thriller of its mighty mangrove timber

The towering timber in Gabon’s impenetrable mangrove swamps have helped to make the Central African nation one of many world’s few internet absorbers of carbon because the crops sequester the greenhouse gasoline 4 instances quicker than forests on land.
While the world struggles to curb local weather change and UN talks on the problem start on the finish of the month, international locations resembling Gabon are attempting to work out precisely how a lot carbon is locked of their mangroves.
“We do not really have a lot of information on the mangrove forests compared to the terra firma forests,” mentioned Vincent Medjibe, who collects carbon information for Gabon’s National Parks Agency. “We’re working on it.”

Across the estuary from the mangrove-rich Pongara National Park, the rising capital Libreville exemplifies the risk mangroves face. In one outer neighbourhood, dry tussocks and muddy holes are what stay of a former swamp that has been illegally cleared for building.
Eco-guide within the Pongara National Park, Ghislain Bouassa, appears by way of leaves to seek out propagules – mangrove seeds, in Pongara National Park, Gabon, October 15, 2021. (REUTERS)
As properly as storing carbon, the swamps are wealthy in wildlife and function pure flood defences. A resident who gave her identify solely as Christella mentioned she was apprehensive her future neighbours didn’t realise the hazard. “They’re in a basin of sorts and when the heavy rains come, the water can rise,” she mentioned.
The constructive information is that consciousness is rising. In the final 20 years, mangroves have recovered from being one of many world’s fastest-shrinking habitats to one of many best-protected with over 40 per cent in a legally protected space, a July report by a coalition referred to as the Global Mangrove Alliance discovered.

Gabon solely started to understand the complete extent of its mangroves in 2018 when a examine within the journal Nature Geoscience used satellite tv for pc imagery to find a number of the estuary’s timber had been greater than 65 metres excessive, taller than the Sydney Opera House, making them the world’s tallest mangroves.
NASA earth scientist Lola Fatoyinbo, who co-authored the examine, mentioned data was bettering quickly. “Science has gotten better, our understanding of their role as really important carbon sinks has gotten better and so awareness has become greater,” she advised Reuters.
Mangroves are present in over 100 international locations. Those that lack monitoring capability can use a web based map and information platform referred to as Global Mangrove Watch. It sends out alerts in close to real-time when it picks up indicators of disturbance.

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One of essentially the most distinctive options of the platform is disturbance alerts that assist stakeholders rapidly mobilize #mangroves restoration & loss-prevention efforts ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/UWwkWGFg3S
— Global Mangrove Alliance (@Mangroves) September 13, 2021
In Gabon, public consciousness drives are designed to scale back the stress on Libreville’s mangroves and the nation’s house observatory helps to trace the mangroves that fringe practically half of the 1,485 km coast, head of environmental safety Stanislas Stephen Mouba advised Reuters.
“There’s a very huge logistical aspect if you want to cover all the mangroves of Gabon, but with this kind of tool we can use it as an early warning system…they can say ‘oh, we have to send people here,’” he mentioned.