Stay tuned, we will post our restoration map in the near future!
Guanaja Island is isolated from other sources of mangrove propagules which makes natural recovery take a very long time. Meanwhile, erosion is damaging the soil base and changing the hydrology. Our plan, therefore, is to plant mangrove propagules directly by hand over much of the area. We have started first with planting Red Mangrove propagules as they are the easiest and also the Reds used to be the most abundant. This way we can cover large areas relatively quickly to get something growing and lock in the soil. Our test plots indicate the biggest survival factor is crab predation of young propagules. Crab predation has varied radically amongst our test plots from as low as 10% to as high as 99%. To counteract this, we will plant in higher than normal density, about one propagule every meter. This should be enough to satiate the crabs such that about 75% of the propagules can be eaten or die off and still there will be plenty to start a new forest. We currently estimate planting a total of 400,000 red mangroves resulting in 100,000 surviving to become adult trees
We will also plant White and Black mangroves. These require growing nursery plants for approximately one year before planting. The nursery will also be used to grow Red Mangrove starts until large enough to be planted in areas with extreme crab predation and in areas where mangroves used to be but the wave action is now too high for small propagules to take. A major problem in these wave intense areas is fouling with seaweed which subsequently tears off the leaves of young trees. The larger nursery plants will be tall enough for the leaves to avoid fouling.
We will soon develop a restoration map which will show more details such as the various zones for the different types of mangroves. For the most part, the Guanaja mangroves used to be in typical zone patterns with the Reds in deeper water, Blacks in a bit shallower areas and then Whites even shallower and nearly on dry land in places.
