TWO mangrove nurseries in Bogale township have begun distributing plants to villages and local and international NGOs for mangrove replanting activities.
U Win Sein Naing, chairman of the Mangrove Service Network (MSN), which worked with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to establish the nurseries, said the plants will be provided to villages free of charge and sold to organisations undertaking replanting programs in the area.

“These two nurseries were established in July 2009 and within four months we have grown 120,000 plants in each nursery. We already handed the nurseries over to the two villages where they are located – Lawine island village and Ma Kyin Myaing island village,” U Win Sein Naing said.

MSN and FAO provided training to residents of the villages and also sent them to Moe Thauk Pan central nursery in Mawlamyine-gyun township, which was established in 2008 with the help of Malaysia-based NGO Force of Nature Foundation.

With the cooperation of locals, MSN also planted 10,000 mangroves in both Lawine and Ma Kyin Myaing villages to protect the lower river bank from erosion.

“It is really important that we re-establish mangrove forests as they can provide some protection against natural disasters like cyclones and flooding. They are also an important part of the delta ecosystem and fish and other water species depend on them,” U Win Sein Naing said. “They can absorb twice as much carbon dioxide as many other plants.”