Mangrove trees play a significant role in preventing erosion and protecting communities from storms. Yet, it was only after the Indian Ocean tsunami, that killed 180,000 people in western Indonesia's Aceh province, that goverments started to pay attention to protect disappearing mangroves, writes Alisa Tang in The Guardian.
"In Aceh, after the tsunami, the result wouldn't have been like this, if we still had mangroves," said Daniel Murdiyarso, a scientist with the Indonesia-based Centre for International Forestry Research.
The Indonesian government is already concerned about disaster management and risk reduction, but since in many countries the impact of climate change is incremental, most governments and communities have not acted yet. Mangroves helped to save lives in Vietnam when typhoons have stricken the area.
"That's when people noticed that where there were mangroves, people survived," Jake Brunner, programme co-ordinator for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Vietnam said. "Thailand and Indonesia suffered a very high magnitude event, the tsunami, and that sent a very clear message. In Vietnam, there have been higher frequency, but lower magnitude events, so it hasn't quite had the same impact, and you still see mangroves being lost."