oceans

The role of mangroves as vital nursery habitat for fish is nowhere more evident than in the tiny island of Bimini, off the coast of Florida. Female lemon sharks come to the sheltered lagoon waters to give birth, and the pups live amongst the tangled roots of mangroves, safe from the attention of predators, until they are about three feet long and have a better chance of survival in the open sea. A long-term research program in Bimini is revealing just how important mangroves are in the lives of these sharks, and I turned up right in the middle of the annual population census.

Opposition to shrimp aquaculture in Ecuador has been growing as coastal mangrove dwellers find their voice and harden their resolve to fight for the preservation of the forests that sustain them. Some of the more outspoken opponents of shrimp farming have had their lives threatened. I met one such champion of the mangroves, who had been in hiding with his family for a month. Here is the blog post I wrote after talking to him. . . Read more »

In May 2009 I set out on a two-month “state-of-the-forests” mangrove tour of the Americas. I wanted to document the plight of mangroves in the region and assess the impact of their loss on the thousands of coastal people who rely on these forests for food, shelter and livelihoods.

Commenting on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Rob Young, coastal geologist and co-author of The Rising Sea, writes: