Alfredo Quarto

March 17, 2022 Global Earth Repair

Mangrove Action Project – USA and International

Alfredo Quarto has been active for over 40 years in organizing and writing on the environment and human rights issues. He is the co-founder of the Mangrove Action Project (MAP), a nonprofit which collaborates internationally with all levels of academia and policy makers to preserve, restore, and educate about our world’s mangrove forests. Alfredo has published numerous popular articles, book chapters, and conference papers on mangrove forest ecology, community-managed sustainable development, and shrimp aquaculture. Mangroves sequester and store more carbon than any other forest type per hectare. These forests also provide a host of other benefits to the world at large – including providing local and native food sustainability, and natural barriers against Hurricanes and Storms. Formerly an aerospace engineer, Quarto’s experiences range over many countries and several environmental organizations, with a long-term focus on forestry, indigenous cultures and human rights.

Prior to MAP, he was the director of the Ancient Forest Chautauqua, a multimedia traveling forum with events in 30 West Coast cities on behalf of old-growth forests and indigenous dwellers. He somehow stumbled upon mangrove forests and the shrimp aquaculture industry that threatened them back in 1992, while visiting fishing communities in southern Thailand. He noticed a common thread of problems faced by the fisherfolk he was interviewing for a news article; outside investors were ruining their lands and livelihoods by cutting mangroves to make way for shrimp farms, devastating their local fishery and agriculture.

“If there are no mangrove forests, then the sea will have no meaning. It is like having a tree with no roots, for the mangroves are the roots of the sea.”

Before the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, mangroves were often described as wastelands, but these forests have been increasingly recognized and appreciated as one of the most biologically diverse habitats on earth. Yet they remain one of the most threatened habitats with 1%-2% annual loss, outpacing other tropical rainforests. An estimated 15-million hectares remain, less than half their original area. Their disappearance is primarily due to over-harvesting for timber and charcoal, urban expansion, pollution, coastal road construction, and industrial developments. Cleared forests and ruined wetlands are turned into shrimp ponds, oil ports, tourist hotels, golf courses and marinas.

“Over the last 23 years, I have wound through countless branching channels and watched roosting egrets and spoonbills, kingfishers and herons alight in the arching mangrove canopy. I’ve witnessed mudskippers in mini-battles for territory, and monitor lizards race across the glistening surface of mudflats towards the safety of deeper pools. I have walked in the mud at low tide, finding fresh pugmarks of Bengal tigers in Bangladesh, proboscis monkeys peering from trees in Malaysia, and immense sea crocodiles in emerald enclaves of India’s Bhitarakanika sanctuary.“

Website: https://mangroveactionproject.org/