Influential Issues: Mangrove Deforestation

Water slowly swirls around roots sprouting from trunks that dive into black mud. In a mangrove swamp, fish climb trees, monkeys feed on shellfish at low tide, and tigers swim as they hunt for worthy prey!

A Bengal Tiger

The Mudskipper fish climbs trees to
escape predators. It can breath air for
short periods of time!

Mangrove swamps border almost all subtropical and tropical estuaries, which are specialized places where rivers empty into the sea. High nutrient levels carried from these estuarine rivers are great for the mangrove trees. The crazy roots you see in the pictures also trap silt carried from the rivers!

This proboscis monkey's nose
amplifies the calls it makes!

Coral reefs depend mightily upon mangrove swamps. The silt caught by the mangroves would have otherwise flowed into a reef. Suspended sediment is B-A-D for corals! Corals depend on a certain friendly algae living in them to provide necessary nutrients through photosynthesis. The silt makes shade on the reef, and shade is an enemy to photosynthesis. The corals die if they are in the shade for too long.

A colorful and healthy coral reef.

Sadly, this reef is dead.

Another important thing about mangrove swamps is the amount of baby animals living there. The small spaces in between roots don't allow big predators to come into the mangrove swamps. Many animals know this, and so they lay their eggs or give birth in the mangrove swamp. 

This Lemon Shark pup relies on the mangrove
swamp for protection from predators!

Mangrove deforestation is becoming more and more of an issue. Scientists believe that over half of the Earth's mangrove swamps have been cut down! Salt pans, golf courses, hotels, and roads have been major factors in this. The most damaging thing by far however is shrimp farms.


Shrimp farmers need to take out a section of mangrove to create artificial pools for their shrimp. These pools are unusable after a few seasons of shrimp farming, and the farmers need to cut down another section of mangrove swamp to satisfy their buyers' demands. A very disturbing fact is that the farmers sometimes install electrified fences to keep local villagers out of their normal fishing grounds. What's worse, the shrimp farms have sandy bottoms that salty water can leak through, making the villager's well-water salty and undrinkable. The local people, who formerly drank clean water and fished the bountiful mangrove forests, are forced to find clean water and food elsewhere.

What can you do to help? An easy and great solution to this problem is to simply stop eating shrimp, and urging your family and friends to do the same. If nobody ate shrimp grown in these farms, then the farmers would be out of business and do something better with their time!

Many people have realized the problems with mangrove deforestation. Along the coast of Bangladesh, people sell mangrove seeds to make money, to help the environment, and to help protect Bangladesh’s long coastline against tsunamis. Along the east coast of Africa, people plant mangrove seeds in discarded cans, to help the mangroves grow. The animals, plants, and people make up a much better Earth with mangroves growing along the coastlines. Hopefully, through strong efforts, the mangrove swamps will be regrown to their original size.

Mangroves can regrow if humans take the time and effort to protect them.