Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 3
Map of Greater Amanzule wetlands showing distribution of surveyed mangrove sites
sites due to effective prohibitions. These include com-
munity-based by-laws as a result of public education
campaigns by NGOs which have been operating in the
areas concerned and also the enforcement of traditional
norms in some limited cases.
Mangrove Wood Consumption and Impacts
on Mangrove Forests
The mangrove is currently valued for fuelwood use at 4,146
Ghanaian cedis (US$2,765) per ha within the Effasu com-
munity (Table
3
)—well above estimates of US$340/ha in
the lower Volta (Gordon et al.
2009
). Wood consumption is
lower than estimates from a similar typical Cameroon
mangrove fishing community (Table
4
). Mangrove wood
consumption for cooking and fish smoking from the Effasu
community is estimated at 16 and 97 m
3
/household/year,
respectively, and per capita consumption is 1.8 and 10.8 m
3
/
person/year, respectively. Current deforestation rate for
cooking and fish smoking is estimated at 0.06 and 0.34 ha/
household/year, respectively, with a per-hectare harvest rate
of 0.006 and 0.038 ha/person/year, respectively.
Wood consumption for fish smoking was generally 1.1-1.3
times lower than that for a Cameroonian fishing community
owing to the use of more efficient fish smoking ovens.
Carbon Storage Potential
The total aboveground carbon stored in intact mangroves in
the area (see Table
2
and stem-size class distribution in
Fig.
4
) ranges from 65 to 422 tC/ha per ha with mean of 185
tC/ha with mangrove aboveground roots (aerial roots),
holding in some cases 78 % of the aboveground biomass in
degraded mangrove areas. It should be noted that below-
ground carbon storage accounts for up to 98 % of total
whole-ecosystem storage in mangrove ecosystems, based on
a recent quantification of whole-ecosystem carbon storage
by Donato et al. (
2011
), so in actual fact, carbon seques-
tration by mangroves is much larger than measured in this
study.
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