Restored mangroves breathe life into Mekong Delta

By safeguarding the forests, communities protect themselves and their environment.

Thriving in a swirl of fresh and salty water, mangroves weave their roots together above the surface, creating what is both a protective barrier during typhoons and floods as well as the perfect breeding ground for a variety of fish, shrimp, and crab.

These hardy trees once dominated Vietnam’s coastline, but population growth, illegal logging, aggressive fishing, and shrimp farming have devastated the mangroves. Many never recovered from the US military’s use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. So more than three years ago, one of Oxfam America’s local partners, Can Tho University (CTU), set out to restore the forests. CTU made a pact with about 1,000 villagers in Long Hoa: if the villagers would replant the mangroves and hold off on fishing, shrimping, and felling trees, CTU would train them to use the resulting enhanced biodiversity to their advantage. Rather than fish from coastal waters, the villagers would learn the best ways to use spillover water from replenished forests to raise more fish, shrimp, and crab in ponds in their backyards.

The Vietnamese fish farmers were initially skeptical. Tran Huu Tri, for one, wasn’t convinced that the new methods held promise. But he soon discovered that the tidal water from the mangroves was rich in nutrients. “Now I don’t stock the shrimp. I get [them] from the natural environment,” he says. Tran estimates that he has doubled both his shrimp harvest and his income over the past two years.

All the while, the mangroves remain untouched and the community thrives, a development that nicely summarizes the conservation project: for everything the villagers give up, they gain much more in return.