Mangunharjo, Bedono, Sawah Luhur — these are just some of the communities where clear-cutting mangrove forests has caused environmental disaster.

Mangroves are removed to make way for shrimp and fish farms. But without the forests’ protection, coastal communities become dangerously vulnerable to erosion and flooding.

In some places, residents have planted new mangroves, and managed to reclaim their home from the sea. But not everywhere.

Text by Jacopo Pasotti, photos by Elisabetta Zavoli

MANGUNHARJO, Indonesia – A mangrove forest once surrounded this village on Java’s northern coast. That was before the woods were clear-cut to make way for shrimp and fish farms. The new industry improved the local economy; residents could finally afford the pilgrimage to Mecca.

The bounty days were soon to vanish. The mangroves’ decline exposed Mangunharjo to massive erosion. In less than a decade, it wiped away the fishponds and almost sank the village.

Local resident Sururi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, remembers when the sea invaded the land, turning the aquafarms into a muddy lagoon. The shoreline, once 1,500 meters from their homes, the mosque, the school, advanced to within a third of that.

In a desperate fight against the march of the sea, Sururi planted mangroves, hoping to stop the erosion and save the village. Step by step, with the support of volunteers and the entire village pitching in, they reclaimed 200 meters (656 feet).

“The birds came back and built nests in the forest,” said Sururi, 58. “So did the fish and shrimp.”

In Indonesia and beyond, mangrove deforestation is proceeding quickly. Many tropical coastal settlements are in danger. “Mangrove areas disappear at the rate of approximately 1 percent per year globally, with estimates as high as 2-8 percent per year in Indonesia,” said Daniel Murdiyarso, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), a thinktank headquartered outside Jakarta. In less than 50 years, the planet has lost more than a quarter of its mangroves, and at this rate they could all but disappear in 80 years.

Nowhere are mangroves vanishing faster than Indonesia. A century ago, they covered 4.2 million hectares (16,200 square miles) of the archipelago country’s coastline. Today that figure stands at 3 million hectares. Most of the deforestation has occurred in the last half century; Java alone has lost at least 70 percent of its mangroves during that period. CIFOR reports that 40 percent of that loss is due to the “blue revolution” – the explosion of aquaculture, especially shrimp farming, in the last three decades. Seafood from fish farms has surged from the 13 million tons produced globally in 1990 to today’s production of 74 million tons. That’s projected to hit 92 million by 2022.

Mangroves are crucial in the fight against climate change. Champions of carbon sequestration, they retain up to five times more carbon than rainforests. The UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes mangrove-specific goals and targets; Indonesia too has committed to halting their loss.

There are strong international campaigns to increase protein intake; the problem is how to keep production sustainable. Certifications such as GlobalGap and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council take sustainability into account. Unfortunately these are voluntary schemes, market-driven and only affordable to large operations. Most of Asia’s producers are small, often family-owned and unable to afford certification that could help to stop mangrove loss amid the rise of the blue revolution.

Land subsidence, saltwater intrusion, loss of marine ecosystem diversity – these are real dangers. Not all communities are ready to stop erosion and rehabilitate mangroves. Mangunharjo succeded, but Bedono, a village not far from the Javan port city of Semarang, did not make it. In less than 10 years the ocean erased Bedono from maps and satellite images. The soft sediments subsided under excessive groundwater extraction, clear-cutting of mangroves and rising seas.

As fishpond expansion and urban development have encroached on Bedono’s mangroves during the past three decades, almost 700 hectares of land have been lost to the sea. Thousands of aquafarms, roads and houses have been submerged. Rice fields and towns inland are now prone to floods. Saltwater intrusion threatens crops and what fish farms remain.

Pasijah still lives in this partly submerged land. She is one of just two residents who did not abandon the doomed village. The ground sinks, the sea rises, but she refuses to move. She raised her home half a meter to keep up with rising waters.

“I hope I don’t have to move somewhere,” she said. “I want to stay here.” Pasijah built a business as fish collector. Fishermen bring their catches, which she collects and brings by boat to sell in a nearby village’s market. It’s a life of solitude, but business is going well. Fishermen depend on her to sell their daily catch.

In some areas around her home mangroves are growing again. Where once were streets and houses, a mosque and a well, now grows a lush forest. The question is if the plants will keep up with the pace of sea level rise and land subsidence.

Banner image: A flooded portico of a former mosque is one of the few ruins remaining in the coastal village of Bedono.

This story was supported with a grant from the European Journalism Center.

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