UAE looks to salty, muddy mangroves in climate change fight

UAE looks to salty, muddy mangroves in climate change fight

ABU DHABI - Against the heat, urbanisation and sand of the United Arab Emirates, the placid, muddy waterways of the Gulf state's coastal mangroves are being restored and planted in an ambitious fight against climate change.

Tropical mangrove forests are complex ecosystems anchored around mangrove trees that thrive in inhospitable hot, muddy and salty conditions. They protect coastal communities against storms and floods, host diverse and threatened species and can soften climate change by capturing atmospheric carbon.

"What makes this species of mangrove, Avicennia Marina, in Abu Dhabi special, is the fact that they are extremely resilient to harsh conditions, they can withstand extreme high salinity and super high temperatures," said Hamad al-Jailani a scientist at the Environment Agency of the UAE capital Abu Dhabi.

"This is very important in the context of climate change, as temperatures around the world increase or become less stable," he said from inside Abu Dhabi's protected mangroves, just under 40% of which are planted rather than natural.

The UAE, which will host the COP28 climate summit in December, has been planting mangrove trees since its founding in the seventies and plans to plant another 100 million mangroves by 2030 on top of its current 60 million over 183