Saving the Delta’s Fair Lady

Irrawaddy

The mangrove forests of the Irrawaddy delta support life and can save lives in times of disaster—but only if they’re in good health themselves 

RANGOON — IS that Meinmahla Island?” asked the young aid worker, stunned by the tangle of debris clearly visible about a kilometer in the distance. Approaching the island by boat, he wistfully recalled a visit to the island the previous year when he was carrying out an environmental study: “The view I saw last year is history.”

Meinmahla (“Fair Lady”) Island, which was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1994, is home to an impressive array of water birds, fish and other fauna, including estuarine crocodiles, sea turtles, wild boars, otters and several species of deer. All depend in one way or another on the island’s dense mangrove forests, which grow in the brackish waters where the Irrawaddy delta meets the Andaman Sea.

In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, however, the island was strewn with debris from homes washed away by the tidal surge. Also, much of its vegetation was stripped by survivors looking for materials to build makeshift shelters.

Meinmahla Island is located in Bogalay Township, one of the worst-hit areas of the Irrawaddy delta. On the night of May 2-3, fierce 160 km (100 mile)-per-hour winds battered the area, claiming more than 130,000 lives in the delta and the former capital, Rangoon. The deadly cyclone also swept away much of the area’s surviving mangrove forests, which had been shrinking steadily for decades.

Mangrove forests were estimated to cover an area of more than 600,000 acres in 1924; by 1998, only one-fifth of this area, or 120,000 acres, remained. Much of this loss was due to a boom in the charcoal industry in the 1970s, when urban demand for a cheap cooking fuel resulted in a rapid degradation of the forests. In the 1990s, agricultural encroachment and the introduction of shrimp farms further hastened their decline.

“Mangrove forests in the delta are in desperate need of restoration f

Myanmar's rice bowl recovering from Nargis

YANGON--The Ayeyarwaddy Delta is the rice bowl of Myanmar, but looking down on it from a Russian-made military helicopter I see an expanse of gray--the once rich soil has been ruined by salt water carried to the area by Cyclone Nargis.

"This place is usually green in the monsoon period, filled with verdant paddy fields," a crew member on the military helicopter carrying diplomats and journalists says. "But salt water from the sea has washed away the topsoil."

Myanmar's agriculture and fisheries sector generated nearly 45 percent of the nation's gross domestic product in 2007.

According to the Post Nargis Joint Assessment (PONJA) report, the devastation caused by Nargis hit the agriculture sector the hardest. Damages and losses to the sector are estimated at between 570 billion kyat (88 billion dollars) to 700 billion kyat (108 billion dollars).

"About 60 percent of the nation's remaining farmland has already been replanted and the authorities are...

Myanmar plants 33,000 trees in Yangon to replace cyclone-downed ones

 YANGON, Aug. 1 (Xinhua)-- The Myanmar authorities have re-planted 32,925 shade-providing trees in the Yangon municipal area to replace those which collapsed during a severe cyclone storm in early last May, the local Biweekly Eleven News reported Friday.

    The May storm brought down over 13,000 old-aged trees and thousands of other shade-providing ones.

    Numerous such downed trees and debris then pressed and rested on houses, while some dragged down many lamp-posts with wire lines and blocked roads in the city.

    At present, almost all of downed trees and debris on the roads have been cleared and accumulated on some vacant plots in the city from where stem roots and branches have been or are being sorted out for auction.

    These stem roots of trees of 30 to 100 years of age are sold freely to both domestic and foreign entrepreneurs for use in sculpture and decoration. ...

Myanmar to turn cyclone-downed tree stem roots into sculpture products for auction

 Yangon, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar is planning to turn stem roots and branches of cyclone-downed trees in Yangon municipal area into sculpture products for auction, the local weekly 7-Day News reported Thursday.

    A total of 45 professional sculptors from two areas of the country are being selected and invited for the move, the report said, adding that they are from Dapain and Bago.

    A cyclone storm, that swept Myanmar in early May, blew down over 13,000 old-aged trees and shade-providing ones. Some of these downed trees and debris pressed and rested on houses, while some dragged down lamp-posts and blocked roads in the city.

    So far after the disaster, almost all of the downed trees and debris on the roads had been cleared and accumulated on vacant plots in the city from where stem roots and branches are being sorted out for making sculpture products to be auctioned to domestic and foreign business...

Cyclone affected farmlands likely to be seized for forest reserve

Relief teams work to prevent inundation of farmlands in Irrawaddy Division

Deforestation may have exacerbated cyclone impact

Mangrove loss 'put Burma at risk'