Support mangrove conservation, UNESCO chief says

Audrey Azoulay, Director General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), made the entreaty successful her connection for the International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem, observed connected 26 July. 

Mangroves are recovered successful tropical and sub-tropical regions, connected the bound betwixt onshore and sea. Globally, they screen a aboveground of conscionable 14.8 cardinal hectares, oregon astir equivalent to the size of Greece. 

Coastal improvement threat 

“They support biodiversity by sheltering and nurturing marine life. They relation similar filtration systems, absorbing nutrients and pollutants. They combat coastal erosion, acting arsenic breakwaters to dissipate tempest surges and question energy. Above all, they play an indispensable relation arsenic c sinks, sequestering atmospheric and oceanic c for agelong periods of time,” said Ms. Azoulay. 

Yet contempt these benefits, UNESCO estimated that immoderate countries mislaid much than 40 per cent of their mangroves betwixt 1980 and 2005, often owed to coastal development. 

Although quality wellness has ever depended connected the wellness of the planet, Ms. Azoulay said the value of mangrove systems is present progressively clear. 

“The satellite is present waking up to the value of mangroves – and different bluish c ecosystems, including brackish marshes, seagrass beds and coastal wetlands,” she said. 

Local partnerships 

UNESCO strives to conserve mangroves done its enactment connected Global Geoparks and World Heritage Sites, the second of which unsocial spans much than 10 per cent of each marine protected areas globally, oregon 200 cardinal hectares. 

The agency’s inaugural connected Biosphere Reserves, which reconciles biodiversity conservation with sustainable use, besides provides “a unsocial blueprint” for preservation, Ms. Azoulay added. 

“In these areas, UNESCO is committed to implementing science-based solutions successful coordination with section and indigenous communities, to enactment humanity’s quality to header with socio-ecological change,” she said, pointing to examples successful Thailand, Senegal, and the United Arab Emirates. 

More than 700 sites successful 129 countries are portion of the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves, which turns 50 this year, arsenic the UN launches a Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. 

“Through these initiatives and others, we are moving to support mangroves and to amended enactment technological probe into these environments,” said Ms. Azoulay. 

She urged radical everyplace to lend to conservation efforts “so that, together, we tin enactment a halt to mangrove situation destruction, and reconstruct what we person already lost.”