Scientific Monitoring begins on EPIC Sites
On Thursday the 23rd of April, scientific monitoring began on the two EPIC sties on Koh Klang. Four members of MAP staff carried out the monitoring, learning new techniques to ensure that they could get as much information from each site as possible. There are 9 3mx3m fixed quadrats established on each site and these will be monitored over the next five years. This first monitoring is known as ‘Time 0’ which is on completion of the physical hydrological correction and future monitoring will occur at Time 0, 3, 6 , 12, 18, 24, 36, 48 and 60 months.
Objective: The monitoring will allow MAP to understand how mangroves restore and what conditions allow the establishment of the most volunteer seedlings. It is important for us to understand how different conditions affect the speed and success of restoration.
Key Message: Learning how to monitor and using a consistent method is very important to allow any information that is collected to be accurate and reliable. Over the next few years, MAP will hopefully have enough information to be able to inform future restoration techniques used by other wishing to covert abandoned ponds back to mangroves.