Diversified food system strategies can improve food composition and income sources for women oyster harvesting communities dependent on seasonal fishery activities. This study focused on women shellfishers in Densu Estuary, Narkwa Lagoon, and Whin Estuary in Ghana and in Tanbi, Bulock, and Allahein estuaries in The Gambia, and to understand the status and opportunities for increasing the use of biodiversity to meet seasonal food and dietary needs. Research activities included site scoping assessments, 21 focus group discussions in Ghana (5) and The Gambia (16) and 356 random household interviews in Ghana (211) and The Gambia (145). In addition, data validation and feedback discussion meetings were conducted with communities across the six study sites. Overall, assembled data covered household livelihood characteristics, food production, food types, seasonality and expenditure attributes, tree planting, nurseries, species diversity and management, local food portfolios, and oyster and fisheries resource use challenges.
Tag: coastal areas
Participatory Land-Seascape Visioning in Densu Estuary, Narkwa Lagoon, and Whin Estuary, Ghana
Ghana is endowed with coastal water bodies that support fishing and fish-related enterprises to support livelihoods. The country has lost a net of 539 square kilometers of mangroves in the past two decades, necessitating an integrated approach to support ecosystems and livelihood functioning. A visioning approach was employed to engage the communities in Densu Estuary, Narkwa Lagoon,and Whin Estuary in Ghana to understand the changes, the current situation, and to identify desired future scenarios in the land-seascape. It involved 115 shellfishers (93 percent and 7 percent females and males respectively). The study suggested that shellfishers are engaged in different secondary livelihood activities, including trade, farming, and livestock keeping, with gender playing a role in activities selection. The general trend in different livelihood activities was degrading and declining productivity over the years and the hope for increased productivity in the future. Natural drivers such as changing temperature and rainfall patterns and human drivers such as crop production, infrastructural development, population growth, overharvesting of fish resources, and pollution, were cited by the communities as being behind degradation patterns. The visioning process identified different activities or practices that the communities want to: 1) stop from happening (e.g., pollution, light fishing, overfishing, etc.), 2) expand or promote (e.g., mangrove restoration), and 3) new activities they want to introduce (e.g., alternative livelihood options and market linkages). Stakeholder organizations and their responsibilities were identified, falling broadly under government, NonGovernmental Organizations (NGO), community, and private sector typologies. Community perceptions on the state of mangrove forests and their relationship to shellfishing activities was documented. Discussion of findings highlight the need for regulatory measures to be implemented in these community land-seascapes and for empowering local resource governance systems through deployment of co-management schemes, contextualized to the local realities.
The Women Shellfishers and Food Security Project: Multivariate analysis of the theory of change model
This report is a summary of a multivariate analysis of the theory of change model of the USAID Women Shellfishers and Food Security Project, which is a co-creation of the University of Rhode Island (URI) and partners from West Africa – the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in Ghana, the University of Ghana (UG), TRY Oyster Women’s Association (TRY) in The Gambia, World Agroforestry (ICRAF), and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). This project seeks to address the need for greater attention to food security for women shellfishers and their families while improving biodiversity conservation of the ecosystems on which their livelihoods depend. The key project components are to: 1) Conduct the first-ever participatory regional assessment of the situation, unmet needs, and promising approaches to shellfish co-management led by women across the eleven countries in West Africa. 2) Elaborate and test elements of models based on existing approaches through site-based research in The Gambia and Ghana to strengthen the evidence base for successful elements of the model. 3) Foster a community of practice around the development and dissemination of a toolkit on a rights-based,ecosystem-based, participatory co-management of shellfish by women in mangrove ecosystems in West Africa.
A Comparison of Global Mangrove Maps: Assessing Spatial and Bioclimatic Discrepancies at Poleward Range Limits
Mangrove distribution maps are used for a variety of applications, ranging from estimates of mangrove extent, deforestation rates, quantify carbon stocks, to modelling response to climate change. There are multiple mangrove distribution datasets, which were derived from different remote sensing data and classification methods, and so there are some discrepancies among these datasets, especially with respect to the locations of their range limits. We investigate the latitudinal discrepancies in poleward mangrove range limits represented by these datasets and how these differences translate climatologically considering factors known to control mangrove distributions.We compare four widely used global mangrove distribution maps – the World Atlas of Mangroves, the World Atlas of Mangroves 2, the Global Distribution of Mangroves, the Global Mangrove Watch. We examine differences in climate among 21 range limit positions by analysing a set of bioclimatic variables that have been commonly related to the distribution of mangroves.Global mangrove maps show important discrepancies in the position of poleward range limits. Latitudinal differences between mangrove range limits in the datasets exceed 5, 7 and 10 in western North America, western Australia and northern West Africa, respectively. In some range limit areas, such as Japan, discrepancies in the position of mangrove range limits in different datasets correspond to differences exceeding 600 mm in annual precipitation and >10C in the minimum temperature of the coldest month.We conclude that dissimilarities in mapping mangrove range limits in different parts of the world can jeopardise inferences of climatic thresholds. We expect that global mapping efforts should prioritise the position of range limits with greater accuracy, ideally combining data from field-based surveys and very high-resolution remote sensing data. An accurate representation of range limits will contribute to better predicting mangrove range dynamics and shifts in response to climate change.
Empowering Women for Shellfish Management, Food Security and Biodiversity Conservation in Estuarine Ecosystems of West Africa
This toolkit provides the first practical guide for the design and implementation of women’s shellfish co-management in West Africa.The toolkit aims to: Share the evidence base; Increase awareness; Equip stakeholders to adapt and apply successful approaches to co-management of shellfish by women in West Africa. This toolkit contributes to achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), The FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication and USAID’s Global Food Security Strategy, Biodiversity Policy, and Gender Equality And Women’s Empowerment Policy.
ReCLAIM – Restoring Coastal Landscape for Adaptation Integrated Mitigation
The Restoring Coastal Landscape for Adaptation Integrated Mitigation (ReCLAIM) Project is a collaborative effort between the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and various Indonesian partners representing university, government agenceis, and civil society with support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, USA.
Seasonal atmospheric and oceanographic factors influencing poleward mangrove expansion in the southeastern American coast
Mangrove ecosystems are distributed worldwide, along tropical and subtropical coastlines. For a long time, mangrove biogeographers have been challenged by the question: why is mangrove distribution restricted to its current latitudinal limits? The Araranguá estuary in Brazil is located ~75 km beyond the eastern South America mangrove limit. Despite its geomorphology apparently being suitable for mangrove colonization, mangroves have been reported absent from this estuary. In this work, we analyze key environmental variables (such as the longest available observational in-situ records of air temperature) and provide an assessment of other environmental players (such as the adjacent ocean circulation and upwelling system) to better understand which factors could be determinant in the species range limits in eastern South America. Our results and assessment suggest that, depending on the season, multiple factors could combine to prevent a poleward dispersion of mangrove species. These are mainly the northward-directed longshore drift which dominates throughout the year and the high occurrence of chilling events during winter, although seasonal upwelling of cold waters in spring and summer could also influence the propagules’ viability.
Assessing impact of land-use changes on carbon stock dynamics in coastal mangrove ecosystem in Bali Island, Indonesia
Indonesia has more than 3 million ha of mangrove forests along its coastal islands, play a significant role as one of the largest global blue carbon storages for an estimated 3.14 billion tons in 2020. However, this mangrove ecosystem is under serious threat with 6% of annual forest loss recorded due to the conversion of various land-use changes. Bali has 2207 ha of intact mangrove forest and has the potential to store a large amount of carbon pool, at the same time Bali serves as the center of tourism activity in Indonesia which raises a challenge to maintain its sustainability. This study aims to estimate the dynamics of carbon storage in Bali island using spatial and temporal data generated from satellite imagery (Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2) and GIS modeling. We analyzed the distribution of mangroves forest from the past and present to understand the threat from land-use change and modeling the future scenario using InVEST. The model will predict the dynamics of carbon stock from present, past, and future values to be assessed and evaluated under development scenarios. Assessing and quantifying the amount of carbon stored in mangrove ecosystem is fundamental in the context of climate change and development of sustainable mitigation programs.
Blue carbon assessments of seagrass and mangrove ecosystems in South and Southeast Asia: Current progress and knowledge gaps
Coastal blue carbon ecosystems can be an important nature-based solution for mitigating climate change, when emphasis is given to their protection, management, and restoration. Globally, there has been a rapid increase in blue carbon research in the last few decades, with substantial investments on national scales by the European Union, the USA, Australia, Seychelles, and Belize. Blue carbon ecosystems in South and Southeast Asia are globally diverse, highly productive and could represent a global hotspot for carbon sequestration and storage. To guide future efforts, we conducted a systematic review of the available literature on two primary blue carbon ecosystems—seagrasses and mangroves—across 13 countries in South and Southeast Asia to assess existing national inventories, review current research trends and methodologies, and identify existing knowledge gaps. Information related to various aspects of seagrass and mangrove ecosystems was extracted from 432 research articles from 1967 to 2022. We find that: (1) blue carbon estimates in several countries have limited data, especially for seagrass meadows compared to mangrove ecosystems, although the highest reported carbon stocks were in Indonesia and the Philippines with 4,515 and 707 Tg within mangrove forest and 60.9 and 63.3 Tg within seagrass meadows, respectively; (2) there is a high difference in the quantity and quality of data between mangrove and seagrass ecosystems, and the methodologies used for blue carbon estimates are highly variable across countries; and (3) most studies on blue carbon stocks are spatially biased towards more familiar study areas of individual countries, than several lesser-known suspected blue carbon hotspots. In sum, our review demonstrates the paucity and variability in current research in the region, and highlights research frontiers that should be addressed by future research before the robust implementation of these ecosystems into national climate strategies.
Macroecological patterns of forest structure and allometric scaling in mangrove forests
Mangrove wetlands span broad geographical gradients, resulting in functionally diverse tree communities. We asked whether latitudinal variation, allometric scaling relationships and species composition influence mangrove forest structure and biomass allocation across biogeographical regions and distinct coastal morphologies. We built the largest field‐based dataset on mangrove forest structure and biomass to date (c. 2,800 plots from 67 countries) to address macroecological questions pertaining to structural and functional diversity of mangroves spanning biogeographical and coastal morphology gradients. We used frequentist inference statistics and machine learning models to determine environmental drivers that control biomass allocation within and across mangrove communities globally. Allometric scaling relationships and forest structural complexity were consistent across biogeographical and coastal morphology gradients, suggesting that mangrove biomass is controlled by regional forcings rather than by latitude or species composition. For instance, nearly 40% of the global variation in biomass was explained by regional climate and hydroperiod, revealing nonlinear thresholds that control biomass accumulation across broad geographical gradients. Furthermore, we found that ecosystem‐level carbon stocks (average 401 ± 48 MgC/ha, covering biomass and the top 1 m of soil) varied little across diverse coastal morphologies, reflecting regional bottom‐up geomorphic controls that shape global patterns in mangrove biomass apportioning. Our findings reconcile views of wetland and terrestrial forest macroecology. Similarities in stand structural complexity and cross‐site size–density relationships across multiscale environmental gradients show that resource allocation in mangrove ecosystems is independent of tree size and invariant to species composition or latitude. Mangroves follow a universal fractal‐based scaling relationship that describes biomass allocation for several other terrestrial tree‐dominated communities. Understanding how mangroves adhere to these universal allometric rules can improve our ability to account for biomass apportioning and carbon stocks in response to broad geographical gradients.