JOR 221 Multimedia
Decreasing Mangroves in West Africa Region.
NARRAGANSETT—Mangrove trees are a large part of the community in the Senegal region that is why their disappearance would have a bad outcome to the people living in the area.
Senegal is a country in West Africa. For the past 50 years this country has faced large amounts of deforestation, which is now becoming a problem. Brice Loose a professor at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School is trying to fix this problem.
The river is located in the area of Casamace. This river turned into an inverse estuary from the lack of rainfall, this means that the salinity in the water is six times saltier then the ocean. “The result in terms of the mangrove eco system was that 80 percent of the eco system was damaged in some way and something like 1/3 of it was lost entirely,” said Loose.
The mangroves are used for many things in the Senegal region. The community uses them for fish nurseries, oysters and rice cultivation. Without them the people could be at a loss of food.
“It’s a serious impact for the people that live there because there are two main sources of income in this area, people cultivate rice and they fish,” says Loose.
Oceanium Dakar is a program in Senegal that is working with the people that live in the area. Since 2006 this program has lead to reforestation.
The people of the community can help by planting new mangrove trees. Oceaniumdakar.org says, “To dates more than 150 million mangrove trees have been planted in 500 villages.” They have had an 85 percent recovery rate.
The estuary is not monitored like rivers in the United States. That is why Loose had an idea to make a monitoring system that is transmitted through the cell phone towers. It is extremely low cost and if it gets lost there is no problem because all of the information has already been sent to a computer.
The device is a small sensor that is placed into the water and it measures, water temperature, water depth and the conductivity in the water.
This project is still in the beginning stages and Loose hopes to bring more to it soon. Unfortunately the Ebola Epidemic in Africa has put the project to a stand still but they hope to start up again when things calm down.