Mangrove forests: Photography winners show beauty of ecosystems

Musfiqur Rahman has been named general winner of this 12 months’s Mangrove Pictures Awards, for his picture of a wild honey gatherer subduing big honeybees with smoke, in Bangladesh.

Run by the Mangrove Action Project, the competitors – now in its seventh 12 months – goals to point out the relationships between wildlife, coastal communities and mangrove forests, in addition to the fragility of those distinctive ecosystems, each above and under the waterline.

Rahman’s successful picture, A Courageous Livelihood, was chosen from greater than 1,300 entries from 65 nations.

“Indigenous Mowal honey gatherers, protected by Bonbibi, the forest goddess, should evade the hazards (Bengal tigers and saltwater crocodiles) lurking within the mangroves,” says Rahman.

“This historic custom and sustainable relationship between individuals and the mangrove forest takes place within the Sundarbans in Bangladesh, and in addition India.”

Mangroves are an necessary safety in opposition to local weather change, with one acre (4,000 sq m) of mangrove forest absorbing almost the identical quantity of carbon dioxide as an acre of Amazon rainforest.

The forests additionally shield coastlines from eroding as intense storms develop extra frequent.

“In the present day, lower than half the world’s unique mangrove forest cowl stays,” says competitors choose Robert Irwin.

“It has by no means been extra necessary to advertise the conservation of those fragile ecosystems by means of inspiring pictures.”

Here’s a collection of successful pictures from six competitors classes, with descriptions by the photographers.

The solar units on a stretch of shoreline after a mangrove restoration and seaside clear passed off inside the area people.

Enchanted by the mangroves throughout a kayaking journey, we put the drone as much as get a unique perspective to disclose the superbly calm blue water between the mangroves.

As local weather change and sea degree rise threaten the way forward for the Sundarbans, constructing dams and mangrove beds is turning into one of many final hopes for the individuals right here.

Many of the mangroves alongside UAE’s shoreline are present in Abu Dhabi, performing as a “inexperienced lung” for the town.

A peaceable early morning second on the Merritt Island Nationwide Wildlife Refuge in Florida.

The Milky Manner shining above a mangrove tree at Mersing Seaside, Pulau Mawar, Malaysia, an space solely accessible by foot at low tide.

After 4 days of monitoring the elusive Bengal tiger, we had been lastly in a position to predict the place this particular person would possibly cross a creek.

The 2 mudskippers had been surprised throughout a combat for territory, by a playful dancing particular person.

These amphibious fish reside in mudflats and linked mangrove ecosystems.

The inexperienced sea turtle is taking shelter within the mangroves.

Inexperienced turtles are born on seashores, develop up within the open ocean, eat seagrass and conceal in mangroves and coral reefs.

Defending these ecosystems is important in defending these species.

A uncommon encounter with a sargassum frogfish out of its pure habitat.

The frogfish is generally related to sargassum seaweed, floating and travelling on the algae for 1000’s of miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

Mangrove habitats are essential for a lot of completely different sea creatures, together with the fascinating and vibrant upside-down jellyfish.

The plastic drawback on this a part of the world is big, and the mangroves are threatened, and slowly suffocating in plastic waste.

Native individuals lower down mangrove bushes for gas and constructing supplies for boats and homes.

Over the previous three many years, Indonesia has misplaced 40% of its mangroves.

The picture within the picture exhibits the reflection of the largest risk to Brazil’s largest city mangrove swamp: actual property hypothesis in areas of environmental preservation.

A clapper rail darts for canopy in a patch of coastal crimson mangroves.

The elusive chook has not been sighted within the space in over six years, however this one has discovered security and solitude in a small stretch of mangroves on the coast of Florida.

Mangroves are important for reptiles, like this Malayan water monitor, to thrive within the restricted coastal inexperienced areas of the town.

All footage are topic to copyright.