Faced with the failure of mangrove protection laws, some countries and NGOs are turning to endogenous cults and ancestral knowledge.
Why mangroves matter
Mangroves are a natural barrier against erosion and a powerful tool in the fight against climate change, because of their high carbon sequestration capacity — often several times that of terrestrial forest per hectare. They are also nurseries: a large share of coastal fisheries depends on them at some stage of the life cycle.
When the law is not enough
Legal protection assumes enforcement, and enforcement assumes presence. On long, remote coastlines with limited state capacity, a decree changes little on its own.
What has proven more durable in several places is protection rooted in local belief and social sanction. Where a stand of mangrove is regarded as sacred, cutting it carries a cost that no fine has managed to impose.
A question worth sitting with
This raises an uncomfortable but productive question for conservation practice: whose authority actually protects an ecosystem? The answer, on this coast, is often not the one written into law.