Community-led initiative in Pred Nai village aims to restore a critically important mangrove ecosystem after decades of degradation caused by charcoal mining and pollution from commercial prawn farming.

Nature-based Intervention:

A group of Pred Nai community members decided to embark on forest restoration in response to the severe degradation of the local mangrove ecosystem by charcoal mining and water pollution from commercial prawn farming. The community group, led by a well-respected monk, further organised the support of surrounding villages to form a Community Coastal Resource Management Network in Trat Province. This Management Network now coordinates the area’s reforestation efforts and facilitates the creation of private enterprises based on natural resources to help support local livelihoods. Micro-credit programs have also been created with the aim of increasing investments in support of local community needs. Primarily, the work of this community group revolves around the reforestation of mangroves in order to provide important ecosystem services including stabilised shorelines that can better combat coastal erosion. The mangrove reforestation efforts also aim to create valuable habitat for fish and crustacean species that were previously reported to be declining. In further support of this effort, a community patrol group improved enforcement of existing regulation against push nets that destroy near-shore coastal ecosystems and implemented a voluntary fishery closure during the reproductive season of an ecologically and economically significant crab species each October.

Overview of context and outcomes:

The mangrove ecosystem on Thailand’s eastern seaboard once covered 48,000 hectares but had been reduced to only ten percent of its original size prior to the start of the Pred Nai Mangrove Restoration Project.