TDA-IME Project Final Report June, 2013 the target audiences for these various communication products. It is especially important to provide information in a relevant form. Project back-stopping: carefully targeted back-stopping, linked to capacity building, could significantly improve the performance of future SGF projects, particularly in management-related areas, such as project reporting. Thus, MFF should give further consideration to the types and levels of backstopping that would most benefit local project managers and other stakeholders. This recommendation applies particularly to the MFF cross-cutting themes of gender equality, climate change considerations and effective communications, which often were not well understood by project managers. Sharing information: it is clear that project managers can learn a great deal from one another if effective information-sharing mechanisms are in place. In addition to exchange visits, where practical, MFF should give consideration to the use of online and social media tools, as a means of facilitating the sharing and exchange of information between projects. Valuing Mangrove Ecosystems and Financing their Sustainable Use Although they represent less than 0.5% of the world’s forest area, and only 0.8% of tropical forests by area, mangroves have considerable ecological importance as the primary productivity base of an often rich and complex ecosystem; and also as ‘ecosystem engineers’, creating and modifying the physical and geochemical environment in which many other species live (Gutiérrez et al., 2013). It is hard to assign quantitative economic values to mangroves, but one frequently cited estimate is USD 10,000 per hectare per year, or USD1.6 x 1012 globally for mangroves (Costanza et al., 1997). Wells (2006) and Spalding et al. (2010) suggest an average of USD 2,000 to 9,000 per hectare per year (at 2007 equivalent values) for large areas of mangrove that are already being utilized by adjacent human populations. Much higher values have been reported for some particular locations in Southeast Asia, with the value of shrimp fisheries alone reaching USD 14,000 to 17,000 per hectare of mangroves (UNEP, 2007). Converting all the estimates to 2013 equivalent values would of course increase the figures further. In addition, Carbon sequestration by mangroves has global significance: one estimate is that mangroves account for a total worldwide carbon storage of 4-20 Pg, that is up to 20 billion tonnes, or roughly equivalent to 2.5 times annual global CO2 emissions (Donato et al., 2011; Siikamäki et al., 2012). In terms of their economic significance in Indochina, there are few estimates of the total value of mangroves, regionally or nationally, but it is recognized that mangroves are of major importance to tropical and subtropical coastal communities. On a local scale, their socioeconomic value can be very high to mangrove-dependent households, even when the monetary value appears to be only modest. Among the major goods and services provided by mangroves are: direct exploitation for timber, fuelwood, charcoal, forage for domestic animals, food, 82 medicines and other minor products; primary sources of aquatic food species and species important for aquaculture; provision of shelter and nursery habitat for other species, including those that are the basis of coastal finfish and crustacean fisheries; coastal protection against soil erosion and flooding;
Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis of Indochina Mangrove Ecosystems
To see the actual publication please follow the link above