Why are Mangrove Forests so Eco Friendly?

Why are Mangrove Forests so Eco Friendly? 

 

Mangrove Forest

That's easy to answer. They are a coastal ecosystem. Take a look at the list below. Basically they battle climate change on many fronts.

1) They absorb 5 times more carbon dioxide and store it in the ground as blue carbon, than the arboreal rain forest.

2) They can grow on the shores of the sea and river estuaries, because they can tolerate saltwater.

3) They are a natural barrier to tsunamis, as they can minimise the height of the waves hitting the land behind them. 
(It has been estimated that 5 miles of forest, can reduce wave damage by 95%.

4) They encourage all types of biodiversity of wild life and aquatic life to live amongst them, providing much needed opportunities for the people living next to them.

I first saw a mango and tasted the salt from it's leaf when I was in Egypt 5 or 6 years ago. I didn't then understand how significant their role was and is to the entire earth, not just their local communities.

Where are Mangrove Forests Found?

Mangrove wetland forests are found in the tropics and subtropics where weather conditions are harsh with levels of high salinity and lots of mud.

Over the last 2 decades over 35% of mangrove forests have been lost through changing the land for agricultural use, large scale shrimp farms or for property development.  But when you cut down the mangroves you destroy your natural defenses against the sea. Your land becomes more susceptible to damage from storm surges and tsunamis. This type of damage can completely destroy lives, property and once sea water enters agricultural farming areas the land becomes barren.

On the Ganges delta they are having a race against time to save some of their islands, many of which have had massive land loss, and some of the islands have been completely submerged by the sea.  Many small agricultural lands have been lost.  Many people have been displaced. Even hospital and school services, and some agricultural farming are now carried out on board ships because the land damage is so severe.

They are fighting back along with many other countries. They have developed mangrove nurseries, off site to grow mangrove trees and harden them off before planting them in the saline mud when they are 4 months old. These new trees are literally being planted by the millions  Some panting schemes have worked, and some haven't. The one's that haven't is because mono-planting has been carried out instead of using a diversity of the 3 major varieties..

As far back as 2011 a mangrove nursery manual was created by Guyana and Europe to help to successfully build new forest areas and regenerate areas that been cut down.

Affects of Climate Change

 

Mangrove Tree

Sea levels are rising and seas are becoming warmer. Even as far back as 2011, it was noted that the Arctic sea ice was shrinking because of climate change. 

In Florida mangroves are now being seen in areas further north than they were traditionally, because of the effects of warmer areas further north.  Also mangroves are protected in Florida, a person cannot cut them down or take them out. Specialised tree surgeons, who have a license to work with mangroves, are the only people allowed to work on them, and they can only cut the trees down to a maximum of 8ft.

If we can stop the loss of mangrove forests, and continue to create them, then the planet will have a much better chance of fighting global warming.

Great News From Thailand

News of a wonderful project in Thailand is showing what great benefits and opportunities can occur when reclaiming lands and turning them back into mangrove forests when all the community get involved.

Mangrove Forests are Legacy for the Health of the Earth

 

mangrove in flower

Mangrove forests are essential to the health of the planet, and careful management is required to ensure their survival.

Mangroves provide building materials, a human food source as well as a magnificent ecosystem for other wildlife and fish. They provide protection against devastating damage caused by storm surges and they can provide a good quality, sustainable life for those communities who live amongst them.

As people we need to stop being takers and start to be givers because the more we give back to the earth and others, ultimately leads to the more we all have given back to us to take.

 

Eco Friendly Lifestyle Bokashi - Green Organic Waste Disposal

 

 

Part of an eco friendly lifestyle is taking care of how you get rid of kitchen waste.  You have to do it in the most eco friendly way to cut out the production of greenhouse gases.

A brilliant system that is also supported by many local councils in the UK is using Bokashi anaerobic fermentation process.

Nutrient Rich Soil Bio-Pulp

Bokashi Bin

 

Bokashi has a long history with origins some believe coming from Ancient Korea. 

The beauty of this system is that is uses specific microbes to ferment green waste producing a nutrient rich bio-pulp that is added to soil.

It doesn't produce toxic run off that can pollute rivers and lakes and it eliminates greenhouse gases related to green waste recycling.

Carbon is not oxidised and nearly all of it returns to the soil.

The temperature of the waste during the bokashi process stays temperate and unlike composting meat, fish, skin and fat, cheese and citrus skins can also be broken down so that it can be used in the soil.

The other difference with bokashi is that it is a safe system to deal with organic matter and the process only takes 10 days to reach its end point.

How the process works

When fermentation begins, physical structures start to break down and release some of the input's water content as a liquid runoff, the higher water content in the food the more liquid runoff is produced. 

 

The liquid leaches out some proteins, nutrients and lactic acid. This liquid is captured at the bottom of the bins so it can be removed by a tap to prevent damage to the rest of the process.  This liquid is known as bokashi tea and is used by pouring it back on the soil, not as individual plant feed.

Everything with bokashi has be to returned to the soil, so that the soil life can finish the breakdown process and become a higher nourished growing medium.

Bokashi is inherently hygienic in the following senses:

Lactic acid is a product produced as part of this process. It is a strong natural bactericide, in fact is an active ingredient of some toilet cleaners. As more is produced, it eventually suppresses lactobacilli.

A tightly sealed home fermentation bin does not release smells when it is closed. A household bin is only opened for a minute or two once a day to add scraps and microbes or drain runoff and only emits the sour smell associated with fermenting products.

An airtight fermentation bin cannot attract insects. 

 

Reasons for using bokashi - acidic anaerobic fermentation as it's referred to rather than composting on a commercial basis.

• Water conservation
• Water quality – minimizing phosphate, nitrogen run-off, eliminating coliform and pathogen pollution
• Stops heat generation and contributions to global warming
• Minimizing demand for petrol fertilizers
• Efficient use of lands by minimizing waste.
• Improving soil fertility and eliminating the need to add phosphates and nitrates

The most important reason is that this technology can dramatically reduce the community’s dependence on petrol derived (fertilizing) products. 

The fermented bio-pulp when mixed with soil establishes healthy high organic content soil free of pathogens and no additional fertilizers are required.

 

Farm lands can be greatly improved in efficiently by cycling the bio-pulp through the soil. 

Water is conserved water 

nutrients are fixed in the soil reducing ground water nutrient leaching 

https://bokashicycle.com/bokashi-fermenting-environmental-benefits-and-impact/

There is no reason why all of us can't make a green change to how we dispose of our kitchen waste to prevent greenhouse gases rising whether buying a home bokashi bin and creating our own bio pulp to put back into our garden soil to nourish it or use a worm bin to break down our green kitchen waste.

We can also be spokes persons for making sure others are aware of these wonderful systems that will benefit all of us including our precious planet.

     

Worm Composting - Eco Friendly Lifestyle

 

How can you live a more eco friendly lifestyle if you don’t have a garden? 

 

We can compost more

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, food is the biggest ingredient in American trash while in the UK households throw away between £250 and £400 of potentially edible food every year. It has been estimated that up to 80% of the contents of our dustbins could be easily recycled or composted. 

Currently over 35% of the average garbage can is filled with kitchen scraps—scraps that could be diverted from being dumped in a landfill site.  

Diverting none animal kitchen scraps is from being tossed into landfills is important because, organic waste generates methane gas (a dangerous green-house gas that increases the rate of global climate change.  

We are all asked to work to make our carbon footprint smaller to help to reduce the amount of methane gas.  That is why we are also asked to cut down on meat and dairy products for the same reason. 

  

Less Green House Gas Production

 

Interestingly methane gas isn’t a by product when kitchen scraps are turned into compost that is why In many places local councils operate a composting program and offer a brown bin, garden refuse fortnightly collection. 

Or you can go one step further and compost your own kitchen waste for use in your garden. or for your potted plants? 

But what if you don’t have a garden. Does living in an apartment give you a get out pass on composting? 

It needn’t do.  there are good composting options for everyone to help us live more eco friendly lifestyles. 

One of the options for composting where you don’t have much space is Compost With Worms? 

Charles Darwin talking about worms said, “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.” 

It is a fact that worms play an essential part in our ecosystem. There are over 5000 species of worms, and these trillions of tiny diggers are one of the facts that we can live on this planet; infact humans wouldn’t exist without them. 

vermicomposting or vermiculture, 

Vermiculture is such an inportant and eco friendly, efficient method of composting that it is a method used by commercial farmers and municipalities as a way of breaking down huge amounts of food waste and manure.  Not only that but if it is done properly it can be the panacea of nauseating aroma free compost. 

Worm composting, produces odour free compost that takes around 30 minutes each week to maintain, and the biggest time investment is harvesting the worm castings or garden fertilizer, which happens around every quarter or half a year. 

 

You can make your own worm composting system. Basically you’ll need 2 plastic boxes, one shallow and bigger to collect the worm tea for plant feed, the taller narrower box needs to have holes drilled into it and be filled with paper, cardboard, soil kitchen scraps and worms. The 2nd box needs raising off the ground to allow for drainage. 

If you want to learn how to make a worm box then check out youtube. 

The other option is to buy a ready made system. 

 

So going forward think more about the waste you throw away that can be safely composted and make the effort to compost it.  Be part of the solution to reducing green house gases, and saving our planet. 

Healthy Greener Options for Sustainability

Covid19 has given us all time to reflect on our lives and how we can improve them.

Why should we consider becoming healither or greener at all?

The answer to that question is really simple.  We (I'm referring to the human race) have destroyed so much of our natural world through our greed. We haven't stopped in our rush to own everything. Conglomorates, commerce leaders, world banks, certain world leaders and individuals, you and me, have trampled down anything and everything in the pursuit of power, wealth and greed and possessions. But there will be a price to pay. There already has. Covid19 is just one example, and look at the devastation that has brought in it's wake..

What are the main culprits that affect the upset to our ecology?

The Aral Sea in 2000 on the left and 2014 on the right. Photograph: Atlas Photo Archive/NASA W

Intensive farming, destruction of the Rain Forest, water pollution to make way for thousands upon thousands of cattle. Our love of buying cheap clothing every season, has caused a sea to almost disapper because of intensive cotton farming, cotton is a very thirsty plant, and the sheer numbers of plants that have been grown to appease our desire for clothing has left communities destroyed.  The Aral Sea basin in Central Asia has completely dried up and the exposure of the dried basin has released salts and pestisides have been blown into the communities poisoning farmland and people with carcinogenics. Do communites deserve to lose their lives and livlihoods because of our greed?

I could go on and on. But what it boils down to is our individual actions, matter. how far we will go in pursuit of 'having everthing'at the expense of destroying everything.  Do we ever consider the environmental impact, our carbon foot print has, on the things we buy or consume?

We have been offered meat and other foods at the cheapest prices, irrespective of the fact that cattle rearing uses the largest carbon footprint of any farming method, and feeds the fewest people. Clearing mountains of waste produced by these emormous ranches and farms poison  local communities as toxins seep in to soil and water systems. And then to top it all is the need for acres of arable farming required to produce animal feed. The world has lost so many species that help to balance nature because of production of soya crops for cattle feed. We've lost varieties of plants and wildlife that helps to keep equlibrium of nature in check.

Will we continue, once Covid19 is over to consume in the same way we've done in the past? Or will we look to making changes, even if those changes may be slightly more expensive, but have a greater healing impact for our world at large?

Strides are being made in production of items from greener sources that will benefit all of us. Making positive changes oursleves can help us to combat the destruction that lies in wait for our future generarions.