• June 2021

    Our photo wall for World Ocean Day in Mati. From left Caroline, Boris and Elmar, Caroline‘s husband.

We are all in the same boat, so the message of our joint campaign “A Race we must win” with the Boris Herrmann team. Boris was only present in Mati as a “cardboard comrade”, but the people who work with the Malizia Mangrove Park had their pleasure in being photographed with the successful professional sailor. Caroline, on the left in the photo, is the president of a Wimen organization in Mati, which also has men as members and comprises 16 villages.
Boris, who is very committed to the oceans and who also continuously collected data on the state of the world‘s oceans during the Vendée Globe, made a conscious decision in favor of mangroves, because mangrove forests are known to be good CO2 sinks and binding CO2
through their muddy soils long period. Half of the world‘s mangrove forests have been destroyed, but a turning point is in sight. Many tropical countries recognize the importance of these salt forests, especially for the next few decades when the sea levels rise even higher.

We keep planting and have now planted 351,395 mangroves. We still have some way to go before we reach our one million mark, but the next big milestone is the 500,000. Take part. More information at www.maliziamangrovenpark.com
You can find a small video here:

If the water rises too high and the sun‘s rays no longer reach the sea floor to see properly the mark for planting, the planting work will be stopped until the next low tide.

Mangroves form a barrier against waves, but also prevent removed sediments from being washed into the sea and covering seagrass meadows and reefs.

A giant tree is planted. The environmental group “Lakbay Tribe” planted 150 Dao seedlings in Marilog, which were given free of charge by the Mama Earth Foundation.

The young trees are particularly dependent on care for the first three years. Most of the time, just make sure that the fast-growing grass does not overgrow the young seedling.

Our work in the mountains is increasing, because in addition to growing mahogany and teak seedlings, we also have endemic trees in our nursery that we use for reforestation. There are now more than 30 different species. The big hit among trees is currently the Dao tree (Dracontomelon dao). A real giant that can grow up to 45 meters. In one year we have given more than 2,500 seedlings free of charge to organizations that are committed to reforestation, but also to care for the planted seedlings.
The advantage is that by giving up seedlings we can have a lot of trees planted without detracting our people from their work. Our foresters only have to accompany the planting, photograph the planted trees with our geo-camera in order to print the photos in our myTree cards and check at regular intervals whether the organizations that received the seedlings are taking their work seriously and the young ones Maintain trees too. We have a simple recipe for the endemic trees: three years after they are exposed, they are looked after, after which the tree has to stand on its own roots and nature has to take care of itself, which it can do better than any forester.

We had posted a video about our work with the mahogany and teak trees on YouTube and asked you to watch it, which many of you did. However, quite a few have dropped out, because the background music of the Tribes did not suit everyone‘s taste. We know from your emails that the topic is interesting, but the music gets on your nerves. We have made improvements. You can start again if you want. Here is the link: