Flemish company creates world’s first mangrove island
Jan De Nul, a Flemish company known for dredging and infrastructure projects, has announced it intends to build the world’s first mangrove island in Ecuador, Central America. The model is said to be scalable worldwide.
Mangroves are vital ecosystems that store carbon, shield coastal communities from erosion and support rich biodiversity. In Ecuador, however, mangrove habitats have declined by half due to urbanisation, wood harvesting and intensive aquaculture. While previous efforts focused on mangrove restoration, this is the first project to build an entire mangrove island using locally dredged material.
The 50-hectare AquaForest island is in the tidal flats of Ecuador’s Guayas river delta. Local community members planted the first mangrove trees, with the goal of creating an ecosystem that will develop independently over time.
Large-scale restoration
“AquaForest is a blueprint for global mangrove restoration,” said Jan De Nul. The company added that using local dredged material makes the model economically scalable worldwide and the group has the global reach, expertise, and infrastructure to replicate AquaForest elsewhere in the world. “We are convinced that this project could lead to large-scale mangrove restoration globally.”
Partners in the project include South Pole, Mantis Consulting, Haedes, ESPOL University in Ecuador, University of Antwerp, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the NGO Fundacion Calisur, along with local governments and communities. The project is funded by the Flemish government’s Flanders International Climate Action Program and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
#FlandersNewsService | Mangroves in Senegal © BELGA PHOTO NICOLAS MAETERLINCK
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