Mangrove forests key to preventing coastal erosion

HCM City (VNA) – Restoring saline-submerged forests is essential to protect coastal areas from natural disasters, scientists said at a recent seminar in Ho Chi Minh City.

They warned that sustainable development would be difficult if measures were not taken to adjust to global climate change.

Recent floods, they said, were partly caused by rapid urbanisation as well as rising high tides of the Sai Gon River .

Seminar attendees called for the restoration of saline-submerged forests to protect coastal areas from natural disasters.

According to the Intergovernmental on Climate Change, Viet Nam and Bangladesh will suffer the most from rising sea tides as a result of global climate change.

In addition to environmental protection, saline-submerged forests have played a vital role in protecting coastal areas from strong winds, storms and floods.

Over the past several years, several major storms in central coastal provinces have occurred, but wherever saline-submerged forests were protected, the sea dykes in the areas stood firm against storms.

In Cat Hai District in Hai Phong Port City where submerged saline forests had been cleared for shrimp farming, several sections of dykes collapsed due to strong storms.

According to Professor Phan Nguyen Hong of the Ha Noi Teachers University’s Biology Diversity Research Centre, the height of sea tides drops significantly from 1.3m to 0.3m after running through submerged saline water forests.

During the tsunami in December 2004 that claimed the lives of more than 2 million people in Asia and Africa , villages located behind the saline-submerged forests remained almost undamaged.

This helped to reduce the intensity of the waves by 50-90 percent, according to a survey conducted by the World Conservation Union and the United Nations Environment Programme.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, saline-submerged forests have been devastated due to overexploitation for economic goals.

The number of hectares of submerged saline forests in Viet Nam fell from 400,000 in 1943 to 279,000 in 2006.

The ministry is drafting a plan to restore the country’s saline-submerged forests along the coast through the year 2015 with a funding of 1.9 trillion VND (118.7 million USD).

Nguyen Manh Tri, secretary general of the Man and Biosphere Viet Nam Committee, has stressed the need to focus on measures to restore and protect saline-submerged forests for coastal provinces.

The measures aim to raise public awareness of the risks of global climate changes, and call on people to cooperate with the government to plant forests as a screen against storms and floodings.

After 20 years’ restoration, the Can Gio forest in Can Gio District has been recognised by UNESCO as a world biosphere reserve in 2000. The 30,000ha reserve helps to protect the city’s environment.