Benefits of Mangrove Ecosystems in Improving Community Environmental Quality

 

Mangrove forests are important to the environment because mangrove forests have an important role or function, both physical functions, chemical functions, biological functions, economic functions and tourism functions, if mangrove forests are damaged or even lost, many losses must be borne by humans or other living creatures and the environment. , such as mollusks, crabs, fish, shrimp, and other biota.

Mangrove forest is a transitional ecosystem between land and sea, found in tropical and sub-tropical areas along protected beaches and in river estuaries and is a coastal plant community dominated by several types of mangrove trees. This plant is able to grow and develop in tidal areas according to its tolerance to salinity, time of inundation, substrate and beach morphology. Mangroves have very broad benefits in terms of ecology, biology and economy. Ecological functions include maintaining stability of the coast and as habitat for birds, biological functions as hatcheries of fish, shrimp and plankton-eating marine biota and as an area for pond fish cultivation, recreational areas and wood sources as economic functions.

Mangrove forests have characteristics with a sloping and even flat topography, attracting the interest of the community to carry out various economic efforts in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, and even industry so that mangrove forest areas tend to be more easily converted into economic areas. Opening access to mangrove forest areas is much easier and cheaper when compared to mountainous areas, besides that the mangrove forest area around river mouths makes mangrove forest areas very easy to change function because of the high dependence of the community to occupy coastal areas. Damage to the mangrove forest ecosystem is caused by two factors, namely natural factors and human factors. Damage to mangrove ecosystems is caused by natural factors such as natural disasters such as tsunamis, meanwhile, mangrove ecosystem damage is caused by human factors such as human activities in utilizing resources in which, for example, cutting down trees to make ends meet.

The existence of mangrove forests is very important to repair because mangrove forests have the following functions:

a. Coastal abrasion barrier

b. Seawater intrusion barrier (infiltration)

c. Windbreak

d. Reducing the content of CO2 gas in the air and pollutants in coastal swamp waters

e. A place to live for marine life such as fish, shrimp and crabs

f. A place to live a variety of wildlife such as birds.

Efforts to preserve mangrove forests can be carried out by communities around the forest by maintaining the mangrove ecosystem so that its survival is maintained.

The benefits of mangrove ecosystems in improving environmental quality need to be supported by relevant scientific knowledge so as to increase and strengthen awareness of coastal communities of the importance of the existence and value of environmental services of mangrove ecosystems for coastal areas. The form of activities that support this idea is through the transfer of scientific knowledge and its implementation. The form of transfer of scientific knowledge is in the form of counseling to the community about the benefits of mangrove ecosystems in improving the environmental quality of coastal communities. With this, it is hoped that it can become the basis for the community in utilizing and preserving the mangrove ecosystem wisely by considering environmentally friendly aspects.

HANI KHAILA PUTRI X PB1