Experiments on degraded ecosystems and associated resources’ rehabilitation – Mozambique Mangroves

Experiments on degraded ecosystems and associated resources’ rehabilitation

 

  • Mozambique

 

Rehabilitation experiments on degraded ecosystems were planned to be performed in both seagrass meadows and mangrove forests. It is envisaged that local communities be fully engaged in this process, that knowledge transfer be effective and provide local communities with technical know-how to perform rehabilitation. This process is closely linked to the activities related to community awareness. The project successfully initiated the planned experiments both in Príncipe and Mozambique, and local communities were effectively engaged.

Mangrove Forest

The COBIONET project built on the already launched community-based replantation at Matola-Rio, peri-urban area of Maputo in Mozambique.

The community has suffered for many years the ongoing degradation of its mangroves and associated resources and decided to take action and initiate the replanting of the forest. The COBIONET project found very interesting and important to help supporting this activity, and at the same time use the location for studying the local mangrove ecosystem and its degradation, and follow-up the restoration initiative using scientific study methodologies. We will thus study the recovering of this mangrove, and the associated trends of environmental conditions and resources. The studies and links to this community are ongoing, and we expect to have preliminary results in the second year of the project. 

 

Aspects of the community-based mangrove nursery and replantation at Matola-Rio, peri-urban area of Maputo, Mozambique. (A-C) the nursery area, with growing seedlinks of Avicennia marina, Rizophora mucronata, Brugguiera gymnorhyza and Ceriops tagal; (D) replanted Rizophora mucronata trees on the creek banks; (E) elements of the COBIONET team with the local community.