‘Mangrove Monday’ the
words that bring terror into the minds of the Projects Abroad volunteers,
guaranteed to leave you sweaty faced, sunburnt, reeking of the smell of rotting
organic matter, and absolutely exhausted. But it’s also the most rewarding day
of the week, you can really see the impact of the work you are doing. Whether
it’s wading through waist deep water and rotting soil to find that one extra
propagule, erecting new nurseries in the local villages or floating down the
rivers masses of work gets achieved. In my 4 weeks in Fiji I’ve so collected
hundreds of Propagules, built a nursery, planted and replanted our nursery and
de-weeded an extortionate amount of bottle pots.
Building
the Nursery
In the last
Mangrove Monday we were sent to the local village Vunibau whose nursery was
tragically destroyed by cyclone Winston. Our task for the day was to rip down
the remaining flimsy structure and assemble a new bigger stronger nursery. It
was in a sorry state, dead propagules scattered everywhere in a mix with our
repurposed half-bottle-pots.
We first emptied
all the bottle pots and moved them out of the area, ridded the ground of the
weeds of which were covering what was going to be our construction site then vaguely
flattened the ground and pulled down the remaining rickety structure. We
hatched a plan of the new structure, and with the help of a few villagers the
boys proceeded to hack up bamboo to equal lengths and dig the new deeper
foundations for the bamboo poles to be firmly placed into. The girls were giving the laborious task of
filling the now empty bottle pots with fresh soil and new living propagules.
In a short
period of time great feet’s had been made with the building work and we had transformed
a rickety structure into the beginnings of a Herculean monument. As all structural
engineers know the best building material available to man is the trusty
zip-tie, capable of holding huge weights this was chosen to be the main
component in making sure the nursery would have a much greater chance of
surviving the next cyclone!
After
the new structure was raised and secured, we started to cover the roof and north
facing side in perforated netting which would protect the new mangrove
propagules from the sizzling Fiji sun. This required a fair bit of balancing,
as one volunteer wasn’t tall enough to reach over the upper poles. I being the
lightest was thrown onto the shoulders of the tallest in order to zip tie the
netting to the bamboo.
As
the day was coming to a close and motivation was falling, we had some
reinforcements… The local children were coming home from school! The girls had
been filling the pots at an incredible pace and we soon had over 800 propagules
planted! The children, a tad confused and very excited to see what had been
built in their village ran out to start putting the now perfectly filled bottle
pots with the new propagules into the nursery. Darting in and out they helped
us to place the bottle pots into 10 by 10 squares, until the 800 were in place.
It’s incredible
to see what can be achieved when we git our teeth and work together. I loved to
see the kids so enthusiastic about their new nursery, as its them who will be
growing up in the new Fiji which if is going to prosper needs the help of the
mangroves to protect against the Cyclones, and over fishing which is occurring
in there waters.
Collecting
Propagules
Every
few weeks we have to restock our mangrove propagule supply. This is either via
walking up the rivers and beaches, plucking them from the trees, or the best
wading through the stink and collecting them from the water and mud. We collect
about 8 bags a time which last us about a week, and is vital for the
continuation of the planting around our nurseries and the ones in the villages
and schools around us. We also try to collect as many bottles as possible from
the beaches on the clean ups to repurpose into the bottle pots. We try and get
as many of the locals involved in the clean ups to show them firsthand the
damage that the plastic’s do to the environment (it’s also nice to have a few
extra hands here and there!).
Work
in our Nursery
At
our very own Ventura apartments we have our very own, very large nursery which
has managed to pump out over 66,000 healthy developed mangrove propagules set
with a root system and leaves into the wild. We have a near factory system of
planting -> weeding -> return to the wild. This is very effective. We
have a doubled layered nursery to maximise our production, which is kept in
check by our mangrove enthusiast Chris.
We spend a lot
of time making the half-bottle-pots which we’ve collected from our beach clean
ups and local businesses such as Uprising who saves all there plastic’s for us.
Having the local businesses support on these matters in vital in the protection
of the mangroves in the area. The most time consuming and back breaking is the
weeding, the fresh, moist, perfectly sun lit soil which is perfect for growing
mangroves is unfortunately perfect for all the weeds and grasses. So we remove
these competitors as quickly as possible from their environment to give the
mangroves the greatest chance of survival.
Teaching
in the Schools
Every few weeks
we go to some of the local schools to teach them about the importance of
mangroves and how they are crucial to the survival of huge amounts aquatic life
which the Fijians need for both as a source of food and tourism. This in my
opinion is the most important work we do. For this project to work we need the
support of the people who live here as they are they maintain the safety and
growth of mangroves. It’s hard for a child to comprehend the long term effects
of destroying the mangroves which we try and illiterate in an interesting way.
Cut down a mangrove tree -> No home for birds, fish, insects, sharks -> Predation
on the young species increases as there is less space to hide, populations of
the juvenile fish and sharks decreases -> therefore less fish make it into their
seas -> less food, fewer divers -> prices of fish go up due to less
supply and greater imports + fewer divers leads to less money for the towns,
villages and city’s which they come to visit -> then fewer jobs and on and
on… And that’s just a few reasons why mangroves are massively important. And
teaching the children who will grow up to be the divers, fisherman, politicians
of Fiji it’s nice to think they may think back and consider the impacts of
things they do on the environment.
“The mangrove forest
sustains the people who sustain the mangrove forest…”
Pisit Charnsanoh, Yadfon
Association, Trang, Thailan
