Rehabilitation, Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Mangroves in Egypt

Study Number:

61

Author:

J. Spurgeon

Main Results and Conclusions:

• Ecosystem goods and services (Table 1, 1):
  • Direct: fuel, browsing (from goats and camels), medicines and tannins etc., pharmaceutical & genetic, agriculture, wildlife resources, fish/shellfish, recreation and tourism, landscape value, education and research
  • Indirect: support to fisheries, support to habitats & species, shoreline protection, sediment regulation and accretion, and other functions.
  • The above goods and services are ranked in Table 1 from low to high importance in relation to income, employment and benefit.
    ***Each of these is discussed in detail throughout the report (see pages 17-30).
• Threats to Egypt’s mangroves include: clearance (e.g. for roads, houses, hotels and other infrastructure, i.e. coastal development), cutting (deforestation) (e.g. for wood and charcoal), browsing, human trampling, disturbance and souvenir collection, over fishing (e.g. on adjacent reef flats), hydrological changes (e.g. coastal roads and jetties), nearby development, solid waste (e.g. litter from land and sea), and pollution (e.g. oil spills, tar balls, phosphates) (Table 3, 3).
  ***Each of these is discussed in detail throughout the report (see pages 33-35)
• Estimated total economic value of mangroves based on off-site fisheries, recreation, coast protection, sediment regulation and non use (Table 15, 37):
  • Ras Mohammed: 182,000 US$/yr
  • Nabq: 1,290,000 US$/yr
• Potential benefits from restoring mangroves:
  • “The key marginal benefit that would accrue from mangrove restoration is likely to be:
    • Fishery function = US$ 1.3/m2/yr.
  • “Other possible marginal benefits, subject to the site, may include:
    • Landscape value = US$ 10/m2/yr
    • Coast protection = US$ 0.1/m2/yr
    •  Sediment regulation = US$ 0.1/m2/yr” (35).