- Bioshield plantations in the wrong habitat can do more harm than good if the sites are not properly surveyed and/or analyzed prior to their creation:
- “In India, the concept of bioshields has moved actively to developing vast plantations of exotic trees (mainly Casuarina equisetifolia L.) to act as bioshields, despite a range of issues including the selective application of science to support predetermined agendas, violations of indigenous land rights, and loss of biodiversity (extinction) (Shanker et al. 2008)”(4).
- “If done effectively, Casuarina plantations can be an important supplemental livelihood for marginalized coastal communities, but should be pursued as such. In their current form, Casuarina plantations appear to have little support from communities”(5).
- “Bioshield plantations have displaced native vegetated ecosystems in many areas. In some locations, exotic Casuarina plantations have been promoted as a better alternative to native vegetation species… The use of exotic rather than native species, for protection and stabilization, is common practice in many other coastal areas as well. In India, sand dunes have been flattened to make way for these plantations (Figure 3), destroying sea turtle nesting habitat and reducing the natural effectiveness of coastal dune topography to provide protection from storms… Moreover, plantation projects often demand the displacement of indigenous peoples from the coast (e.g., Sri Lanka, Ingram et al. 2006; Wong 2009a), allowing their undocumented land rights to disappear while filling the coast with new (coastal) developments (e.g., India, Rodriguez et al. 2008).”(6).
- “… we conducted a site-selection analysis for planting mangrove forests in Sri Lanka in response to the country’s interest in using vegetation for potential protection (see Supporting Information material online for detailed Methods and Results). We found that two-thirds of the vulnerable coastline did not have the appropriate environmental settings for mangrove forests to develop (Figure 5). Their introduction in the wrong settings would have replaced other native ecosystems, particularly sand dunes; although for previously degraded mangrove sites, we strongly advocated their restoration provided that the physico-chemical conditions were suitable”(8).
- Recommendations for future bioshields projects:
- “The best ways to reduce the impact of extreme episodic events are: (1) to reduce physical exposure by promoting sensible coastal development; (2) to develop adequate disaster preparation; and (3) to enhance the capacity of social-ecological systems to cope with and adapt to surprise”(8-9).
- “Coastal vegetation such as mangrove ecosystems is critical to the resilience and vitality of many coastal social-ecological systems and we believe that their conservation is necessary. In the long-term, the goods and services (e.g., carbon storage, increased fisheries production, or water purification) provided by mangrove forests are likely to be more valuable than gains from unsustainable agriculture or aquaculture (Huitric et al. 2002), even without the protection service values included”(9).