Some remarks on Mangroves in the Lesser Antilles

Abstract

During the past thirty years the surface of mangrove swamps in the Lesser Antilles has globally decreased over twenty percent. The phenomenon is worldwide spread but the Lesser Antilles' issues remain noteworthy because, due to the small size of these islands, prejudices on the mangrove swamps may have significant impacts. This paper starts to address some methodological remarks about statistics concerning mangroves (before the nineties, long-term data are incomplete and they impede a good estimate of the evolution of this ecosystem) and is mainly divided in two parts. In the first part, we briefly recall the importance of mangrove swamps in the Lesser Antilles. Despite the different physical characteristics of these islands, mangroves appear from several points of view as one of the common feature in these islands. Quantitatively, from 1980 to 2010, the area occupied by mangroves has regressed in the Lesser Antilles and in the world in general. Mangroves were soon disqualified owing to their inaccessibility and unhealthiness. Furthermore, deprived of their traditional functions, they have been progressively marginalized with economic development and rising living standards in small islands economies notwithstanding their positive role as an ecosystem. Highlighted since the 1980s, this role appears particularly evident in the field of marine resources and protection against hurricanes and tsunamis, but also to help restore the quality of coastal waters and biodiversity. In the second part of this paper, we wonder about the paradox faced by the inhabitants of the Lesser Antilles. On the one hand they really cannot prevent major natural threats on their wetlands like global climate change, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes or tsunamis. And on the other hand, due to their territorial and political scale, these small islands should be able to act against local anthropogenic threats i.e. deforestation, household effluents, agriculture, urbanization, tourism, etc. Indeed, the Lesser Antilles islands have adopted the principles of ecosystem protection and integrated development of coastal areas (including various international conventions in this area). The land use policy, the urban planning, the building on the coastline or next to the mangroves are theoretically under public control. But the paradox is that effective provisions and outcomes are often weak against direct anthropogenic threats even if local solutions do not seem to be out of reach. We give a few typical examples illustrating the damage to mangroves in these islands today whatever the political status or the administrative organization. We conclude by considering that the case of mangroves in the Lesser Antilles may be a good illustration of the economic problem posed by the management of the commons. Shortly, the protection granted to goods depends on the value of goods. As for us the continuous decrease of mangrove surfaces reflects the lack of recognition of their value at every sense of the word. Even outside the market system, the recovery and the...

Postglacial expansion pathways of red mangrove, Rhizophora mangle, in the Caribbean Basin and Florida

“…The Antilles Current flows northwest from Puerto Rico directly to the Bahamas (Lee et al, 1996) and may partly explain why this greater geographic distance does not translate into greater genetic distance. Also, as discussed earlier, Caribbean islands possess limited areas where mangroves can inhabit, especially in the Lesser Antilles (Imbert et al, 2000; Angelelli and Saffache, 2013), and reduced population sizes can augment the effects of genetic drift on population structure, as well as limit genetic diversity that may in part explain the lack of a relationship between R. mangle intrapopulation diversity and latitude (Fig. 6).…”

“…These F ST values equate to more than 2.5 times greater interpopulation differentiation across the CAI than across the Atlantic Ocean. Trans‐Atlantic transport along the NEC occurs from Northwest Africa to the islands of the Lesser Antilles, which possess relatively small areas mangroves can inhabit (Imbert et al, 2000; Angelelli and Saffache, 2013). Thus, even a small number of initial West African propagules could relatively quickly reproduce and occupy a significant portion of these islands' available habitat.…”

Overview of sea conservation policies in Brazil and social and environmental impacts in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The ecosystem resources and services provided by marine ecosystems, mangroves, restingas, and other environments suffer from impacts resulting from the lack of human sustainability, resulting in losses for society itself, especially the most vulnerable (Angelelli & Saffache, 2013).…”

Investigating Environmental Factors for Locating Mangrove Ex-situ Conservation Zones Using GIS Spatial Techniques and the Logistic Regression Algorithm in Mangrove Forests in Iran

“…Therefore, these projects should be designed in advance to achieve success and to avoid wasting large amounts of money [17]. In most cases, direct human disturbance is the cause of mangrove degradation, so the risk of human-induced disturbance in the restoration and development sites must be eliminated before commencing plantation programs [25].…”