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Sun 02 Jan 2005

Loss of mangroves worsened impact of tsunami

Category : envt

Photos from Digital Globe via Screenshots, showing the absence of
coastal vegetation and the extent of tsunamic inundation.

Interview with Jeff McNeely, chief scientist of the Swiss-based World Conservation Union (IUCN): The disaster was "nothing new for nature" in a geologically active region.

"The mangroves were all along the coasts where there are shallow waters. They offered protection against things like tsunamis. Over the last 20-30 years, they were cleared by people who didn¹t have the long-term knowledge of why these mangroves should have been saved, by outsiders who get concessions from the governments and set up shrimp or prawn farms.²

The shrimps and prawns are sold to Europeans and other foreigners ³at a price that does not include the environmental cost which is being paid today,² McNeely said.

Read the article at The Biology Refugia.

Similar remarks were made in light of the Orissa cyclone disaster of 29 October 1999.

See also the EJF campaign, "Why prawns will make you sick."

Posted at 11:25AM SGT by N. Sivasothi | permalink | email |