June 4, 2021: The support of Asian Development Bank (ADB) is making a positive impact in restoring the ecosystem of Pakistan’s coastal areas, enabling communities to fight poverty and climate change.
ADB provided $36 million to the Sindh Coastal Community Development Project to reduce poverty in coastal communities and protect the fragile mangrove ecosystem of the Indus Delta coastline.
The ADB-supported restoration of mangrove forests along the coastline of Pakistan’s Indus Delta helped protect 24,000 acres of land from sea intrusion and improve the livelihoods of coastal communities.
Pakistan’s Indus Delta coastline hosts a rich mangrove ecosystem on which coastal communities depend for their well-being. Uncontrolled and unsustainable harvesting of mangroves in the past, saltwater intrusion, and rising sea levels and other factors threaten the survival of the mangroves.
The villagers under the project teamed up with the Sindh Forest Department in 2013 to plant some 800,000 mangroves saplings along the creeks in a single day, a move recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records. The Forest Department and local communities have since planted many more mangroves.
