Observations of Natural Recruitment and Human Attempts at Mangrove Rehabilitation After Seismic (Tsunami and Earthquake) Events in Simeulue Island and Singkil Lagoon, Aceh, Indonesia - Post-Tsunami Hazard: Reconstruction and Restoration - page 309

19.3 Refl ection on Human-Assisted Mangrove Rehabilitation

in Changing Intertidal Zones (from Social - Economic
and Environmental Perspectives)

It was reported that the 2004 tsunami in Aceh destroyed 32,000 ha of mangroves
along the Aceh coast (Department of Fisheries and Oceans, 2005; and NAD
Province Department of Forestry, 2005 as cited in Purwanto 2008 ). In response to
this loss, 164 institutions, both government and non-governmental, (including only
those registered with the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Bureau of Reconstruction and
Rehabilitation), engaged in mangrove rehabilitation in the affected areas (Brown
and Yuniati 2008 ). A pair of these mangrove planting projects is discussed below.
The Australian Red Cross (ARC) initiated the planting of 60,000 mangrove
seedlings at fi ve sites on the North Coast of Simeulue Island in 2006. Project moni-
toring 1 year later, in 2007 indicated total mortality at three sites, 25 % survivorship
at a 4th site and 70 % survivorship at the 5th site (ARC Simeulue Offi ce - project
report, 2007). At this point, ARC contacted Mangrove Action Project - Indonesia,
who was contracted to undertake a rapid assessment leading the recommendation
that an Ecological Mangrove Rehabilitation (EMR) training be initiated with eight
villages who were involved in planting the fi ve sites. The training occurred in 2007,
participated in by 30 women and men from the 8 villages. Evaluations of the train-
ing revealed that the majority of community members wished to attempt follow-up
activities to rehabilitate mangroves in replanted sites, using techniques of propagule
distribution and some hydrological repair; however, the 3 year ARC project came to
an end, and no further action was taken by ARC, MAP or the local communities.
Between 2010 and 2013 a project under the USAID CADRE program 1 engaged
Lutheran World Relief to continue mangrove rehabilitation and conservation activities
in fi ve villages on the North Coast of Simeulue Island, and fi ve villages around Singkil
Lagoon. In the project plan, mangrove rehabilitation sites were to be chosen after social
(land tenure, stakeholder support) and ecological feasibility studies were undertaken.
However, in practice, project managers pre-selected all ten villages before the feasibility
study was conducted. In Simeulue, the fi ve villages selected were all located in Teluk
Dalam, where natural recruitment was already estimated as “recovering.”
It was determined to take baseline surveys of natural recruitment in order to
revise recommendations of potential rehabilitation sites. In both Simeulue and
Singkil Lagoon, baseline surveys would reveal that natural recovery rates were
already higher than the project's success criteria (see Sects. 4.1 and 4.2 below), and
that no genuine mangrove rehabilitation sites existed at selected project locations.
A genuine rehabilitation site was considered a site where natural recruitment, with-
out human intervention, would not be suffi cient to effectively restore mangrove
populations. In search for viable rehabilitation sites (so that project targets of 400 ha
of mangrove rehabilitation could be met) it was hypothesized that newly uplifted
intertidal areas in Eastern Simeulue would not be recruiting at suffi cient rates to
repopulate mangroves in the near-term, and that human intervention was needed to