NAREI pursuing robust response to threat to mangrove forests – 2016 Annual Report

Overharvesting threatening coastal mangrove belt

While mangrove continues to contribute substantially to the overall local sea defence regime on account of its role in dampening wave action and reducing wave energy, the country’s remaining standing mangrove forests are continually under threat from “a range of natural and man-made factors” according to the 2016 Annual Report of the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI).

The report says that while the mangrove also plays a role in trapping sediments, stabilizing shoreline substrates in addition to playing a role in “carbon sequestration,” the “natural erosive and accretive cycle characteristic of the coastline of the Guianas” as well as large scale mud bank movements also represent natural threats to mangroves in Guyana.