Mangroves at Mary's Creek, St. John (Photo by Frank Olivier)
If you were a tropical fish living in the
Caribbean, there’s a good chance you would have spent
your youth darting between the roots of mangroves.
Those saltwater plants guard young fish from predators.
Mangroves also protect shorelines from erosion and
hurricanes. But now it’s the mangroves that need
protection. Ann Dornfeld reports:
Transcript
If you were a tropical fish living in the
Caribbean, there’s a good chance you would have spent
your youth darting between the roots of mangroves.
Those saltwater plants guard young fish from predators.
Mangroves also protect shorelines from erosion and
hurricanes. But now it’s the mangroves that need
protection. Ann Dornfeld reports:
It’s a brilliantly sunny, gusty day on St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. Stanley
Berry has backed his motorboat into an opening in this quiet mangrove bay. He’s
one of the island’s traditional French fishermen. He’s lean, bronzed and bare-
chested.
“I going yellowtail snapper tonight. I’m doin’ night fishing. See if I can catch
something tonight, God spare life.”
Berry says the red mangroves that ring this bay serve as a sort of daycare for the
young fish he’ll eventually catch.
“If you have to snorkel around and check it out, you’ll notice that all these little
fishes are different type of grouper, snapper, you name it all comes and all the
baby ones come and hang around in there so the big fish don’t eat ’em. It protects
’em. It’s real good for the fish to come and spawn in here and stuff.”
Mangroves’ dry branches are home to birds and lizards. Their roots prevent sediment
from the land from seeping into the water. And mangroves provide a buffer zone that
protects inland areas from storms moving in from the ocean.
As important as they are, these mangroves are at risk. David Olsen is director of the
US Virgin Islands Division of Fish and Wildlife. He says island natives understand
the value of the mangroves. But he says developers aren’t as appreciative. One
company wants to rip out the red mangroves on this bay for new construction.
“They would basically line the entire area with condominiums, have docks
basically filling the entire bay, eliminate all the traditional use, and plant a little
fringe of black mangroves.”
Olsen says developers have to leave some mangroves in their plans, because the
islands have a no-net-loss policy for wetlands. But the black mangroves they want to
plant don’t grow in the water. That means they wouldn’t serve as fish nurseries.
This is hardly an isolated incident.
“We have lost, in the Virgin Islands, probably 50 percent of our mangrove areas
over the last half a century.”
Rafe Boulon is Chief of Resource Management for the Virgin Islands National Park.
He says mangroves are often filled with dirt for new construction.
“Anytime people fill land, typically they’re filling mangroves because they’re
selecting nice calm bays and that’s where the mangroves are.”
Boulon says mangroves are in much better shape here on St. John, a 30-minute ferry
from St. Thomas. That’s because most of this island is a national park.
If you want to see firsthand why mangroves are so important, all you need is a mask
and snorkel. The water is kind of murky and golden from fallen leaves. But it’s rich
with sealife.
“Okay, so we just got out of the water, and we saw probably a dozen different
species of juvenile varieties of the fish you see when you snorkel or dive out in the
deep water. And they’re darting among the mangroves and chasing each other –
really, really playful.”
Boulon says for people new to the islands, mangroves can seem like a swamp. They
release methane as leaf litter decomposes. And the roots collect trash that floats in
from sea.
“So hence, if they’re dirty and smelly there’s no really good purpose for them –
however, they’re very, very important ecosystem here.”
The trick is to convince the scores of people who are building new homes on the
Virgin Islands of the value of mangroves, including a new wave of retiring baby
boomers.
For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld in St. John.
