Identifying Mangrove Deforestation Hotspots in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific

Abstract

Mangroves inhabit highly productive inter-tidal ecosystems in >120 countries in the tropics and subtropics providing critical goods and services to coastal communities and contributing to global climate change mitigation owing to substantial carbon stocks. Despite their importance, global mangrove distribution continues to decline primarily due to anthropogenic drivers which vary by region/country. South Asia, Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific contain approximately 46% of the world’s mangrove ecosystems, including the most biodiverse mangrove forests. This region also exhibits the highest global rates of mangrove loss. Remotely sensed data provides timely and accurate information on mangrove distribution and dynamics critical for targeting loss hotspots and guiding intervention. This report inventories, describes and compares all known single- and multi-date remotely sensed datasets with regional coverage and provides areal mangrove extents by country. Multi-date datasets were used to estimate dynamics and identify loss hotspots (i.e., countries that exhibit greatest proportional loss). Results indicate Myanmar is the primary mangrove loss hotspot, exhibiting 35% loss from 1975–2005 and 28% between 2000–2014. Rates of loss in Myanmar were four times the global average from 2000–2012. The Philippines is additionally identified as a loss hotspot, with secondary hotspots including Malaysia, Cambodia and Indonesia. This information helps inform and guide mangrove conservation, restoration and managed-use within the region.

Global declines in human‐driven mangrove loss

“…These efforts have largely centered on the intersection of the Mangrove Forests of the World (MFW; Giri et al., 2011) and the Global Forest Change (GFC; Hansen et al., 2013) datasets (Hamilton & Casey, 2016; Richards & Friess, 2016). We improve on these estimates by correcting for known alignment issues throughout certain regions within the MFW map (Gandhi & Jones, 2019). Similarly, we overcome the water masking issues with the GFC loss layer (Lagomasino et al., 2019) to better capture ER along the seaward margin and other flooding conditions.…”

Distinct fungal communities associated with different organs of the mangrove Sonneratia alba in the Malay Peninsula

“…Southeast Asia contains are the most biodiverse, extensive and oldest mangrove forests on the planet (Ellison et al 1999 ; Giri et al 2011 ; Gandhi and Jones 2019 ). However, their continued existence faces an uncertain future, with considerable challenges presented by deforestation, aquaculture and a multitude of other anthropogenic stressors (Farnsworth and Ellison 1997 ; Richards and Friess 2016 ; Romañach et al 2018 ).…”

Mangrove-Associated Fungal Communities Are Differentiated by Geographic Location and Host Structure

“…Southeast Asian mangroves are the oldest, most biodiverse and extensive mangrove forests on the planet (Ellison et al, 2004; Spalding et al, 2010; Giri et al, 2011; Gandhi and Jones, 2019). However, the region also has the highest rates of mangrove loss in the world, with some countries recording declines of 28% over a 14-year period that have been attributed to land clearance and a slew of other anthropogenic factors (Farnsworth and Ellison, 1997; Richards and Friess, 2016).…”