Mangrove Ecosystem Essay

The mangrove ecosystem

The functions of mangroves

Mangrove forests are diverse types of trees, shrubs and palms that live in waterlogged saline habitats in the tropics and subtropics areas. There are approximately 80 kinds of mangroves found around the world (Saenger et al.,1983), most of them are found between latitudes 32° N and 38° S.

Mangroves are valuable coastal resources which are essential to our socio-economic development. According to Kathiresan (2011), mangrove forests have the functions as follows:

1. Mangrove forests provide long-lasting or temporary habitats for lots of marine and terrestrial species. A wide range of marine species are found in mangroves such as crabs, crocodile and different types of fish. Terrestrial species usually found in mangroves includes birds, snakes and frogs.

2. Mangroves also provide a large number of endangered species such as limnodromus semipalmatus. Those species are of international interest.

3. The mangrove ecosystem act as traps for sediments and nutrients, and sink for natural and man-made contaminants.

4. Mangroves provide a source of food and breeding places for different types

Some companies have been set up paper mills near the mangrove forests in Indonesia, these paper mills gained timer by cutting trees from mangrove forests which would destroy the balance of the mangrove ecosystem. A large scale of mangrove forests are destroyed for pond construction in some countries. Take Philippines as an example, approximately half of mangrove forests lost for aquaculture from 1968 to 1983. The major issue related to aquaculture is acidification of water that would kill fish and aquatic plants. Many thousands of acres of mangrove forests are reclaimed for agriculture around the world, agricultural chemicals runoff into mangroves to impact the health of living organisms in the mangrove