The
increase in the
level of the sea caused for the climatic change could destroy half of the
manguezais in some
islands of the Pacific, in accordance with a study carried through for United
Nations.
According to study, that analyzed manguezais in 16 islands of the Pacific, the impact could widely be reduced if the nations took measured to limit the coastal
development, to reduce the pollution and to recoup the manguezais that had been destroyed or degraded.
“It has a urgent necessity to help vulnerable communities if to adapt to the increase of the level of the sea, that already is happening”, said Achim Steiner, executive director of the Program of the Environment of United Nations.
The manguezais - shrubs or trees that grow in the littoral areas - had shown to supply to an important protection between the water and the continent while they serve of fishery for
fish and other marine animals. The inhabitants of the islands of the Pacific depend on the manguezais for feeding but also they extract from there dyes, that they use in fabrics and nets of fish, in accordance with the ONU.
About half of the manguezais it was destroyed around of the world, the majority because of the development and of the pollution. But in recent years, the climatic change if presented as an additional threat, since the increase the level of the sea sank the manguezais.
The manguezais in the Pacific, according to United Nations, are especially vulnerable, therefore the islands of the Pacific are not more than the four meters of the level of the sea, and most of the economic development is intent in the littoral field.
So far, the increase in the level of the sea in the Vanuatu and New Papua Guiné, in the southwest of the Pacific, forced hundreds of inhabitants to abandon its homes.
The study of the ONU it discovered that, on average, 13% of the manguezais in the Pacific would be destroyed by the increase of the level of the sea, with the worse damages in the American Samoa, Fiji, Tuvalu and the Federative states of the Micronésia.
They had United Nations alerted that the loss of the manguezais in these islands goes “to increase the threat to the security human being and the development between the sea and the continent represented for erosions, floods and waves of storms”.
“The loss of the manguezais also goes to reduce the quality of the water in the coast and biodiversity and to eliminate the fisheries of fish”, affirmed the report.
Published: July 19, 2006
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