Adopt A Mangrove

4-H Club

Adopt a Mangrove Project

Our project will restore mangroves, educate the community about their importance, and will give community members a vested opportunity to be a part of the restoration process. Register for the Adopt a Mangrove Project today!

Participants

Participants of the Adopt a Mangrove project.

Benefits

Provide food, shelter, and structure for estuarine sea life
Serve as a hurricane buffer, conserving 20/20 land for our children and their children.
Improve our water quality, protecting against coastal erosion, providing a habitat for birds and wildlife

Shoreline Protection

Mangroves protect shorelines from erosion

Mangroves protect shorelines from damaging storm and hurricane winds, waves, and floods. Mangroves also help prevent erosion by stabilizing sediments with their tangled root systems. They maintain water quality and clarity, filtering pollutants and trapping sediments originating from land.

Nursery

Mangroves serve as valuable nursery areas for fish and invertebrates

Serving as valuable nursery areas for shrimp, crustaceans, mollusks, and fishes, mangroves are a critical component of Florida's commercial and recreational fishing industries. These habitats provide a rich source of food while also offering refuge from predation. Snook (Centropomus undecimalis), gray snapper (Lutjanus griseus), tarpon (Megalops atlanticus), jack (Caranx spp.), sheepshead (Archosargus probatocephalus), and red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) all feed in the mangroves. Florida's fisheries would suffer a dramatic decline without access to healthy mangrove habitats.

Threatened and Endangered Species

Mangroves Support Threatened and Endangered Species

In addition to commercially important species, mangroves also support a number of threatened and endangered species.

Importance of Mangroves

a. Buffer Zone between the land and sea.

b. Protect the land from erosion.

c. Play an invaluable role as nature's shield against cyclones, ecological disasters and as protector of shorelines.

d. Breeding and nursery grounds for a variety of marine animals.

e. Harbor a variety of lifeforms like invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and even mammals like tigers.

f. Good source of timber, fuel and fodder.

g. Main source of income generation for shoreline communities like fishermen.

h. Save the marine diversity, which is fast diminishing.

i. Purify the water by absorbing impurities and harmful heavy metals and help us to breathe a clean air by absorbing pollutants in the air.

j. Potential source for recreation and tourism.

Our Volunteers

4H Club Volunteers planting mangroves