Mangrove Restoration under Different Disturbances Regime in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

Abstract

Mangroves of the Niger Delta are the largest in Africa and are the source of numerous ecosystem services such as firewood, seafood, building materials and medicinal herbs. Their sustainable use and protection are important for future generations. However, anthropogenic activities such as oil and gas exploration, urbanization, industrialization, dredging, overexploitation and sand mining are the major disturbances that have pushed the mangroves to the brink of extinction. Therefore, in other to restore lost areas of the mangroves natural and artificial means can be adopted to bring them to a restored state. More often than not emphasis of recovery had been placed on artificial remediation and restoration, where polluted sites are cleaned with chemicals and nursery seedlings transplanted to remediated such sites. Nevertheless, this chapter discusses the possibility of utilizing natural means of forest recovery through seedling recruitment and regeneration. This can be achieved by establishing the right environmental conditions such as setting up of a hydro-channel to ensure smooth inflow and out flow of river water carrying seeds, availability of parent mangrove trees to supply the seeds, and the availability of the right soil condition to enable seedling germination and growth. The use of dried and ground mangrove parts as a new way for restoring polluted soil is discussed; in addition, the unconventional proposition of using low key pollution to manage and increase forest resilience is highlighted in this work even though further studies are recommended. Future direction of mangrove restoration should be tilted towards the application of the force of nature, which has the potentials of reversing the adverse effect of anthropogenic activities in well managed and protected sites.