MAP’s EPIC Mangrove video: A global success!

EPIC Project Advisory Committee meeting

By MAP Intern, Amber Bowes & Jim Enright, Asia Coordinator

Back in December we reported on the filming of a new Ecosystems Protecting Infrastructure Communities (EPIC) video by MAP’s visual communications consultant Leo Thom, and Tim Plowden, a British wildlife photographer based in Singapore. The two of them spent 6 days in the Krabi region of Southern Thailand gathering footage, before a lengthy post-production process by Leo. The video entitled: Mangroves: Reducing the Risk of Disaster through Nature-Based Solutions has since been completed and the fantastic short documentary is available both in English and Thai while being shown at a wide variety of events and locations.

The video highlights the importance of restoring abandoned shrimp ponds of which there are an estimated 250,000 hectares in Asia. Formerly, these ponds were healthy mangrove ecosystems providing a long list of goods and services to their local communities and locking up vast quantities of carbon.  MAP has been using the Community-Based Ecological Restoration (CBEMR) methodology to restore the full biodiversity of the mangroves to these abandoned shrimp ponds and to allow the EPIC project to showcase the disaster risk reduction (DRR) importance of mangroves. Many communities, such as those in coastal Southern Thailand, are suffering from the intensification and increased frequency of tropical storms. Additionally, climate change induced sea level rise has resulted in serious erosion affecting infrastructure, salinization of agriculture lands and loss of land. All these challenges facing local communities have been exacerbated by the wide-scale destruction of local mangroves. With resources like this short documentary, MAP is raising awareness and promoting IUCN’s Eco-DRR concept of “Nature-based solutions” of this issue and able to disseminate information to a wide range of people from all over the world.  

EPIC mangrove video being displayed on large screen (lower right) at the IUCN headquarters in Gland, Switzerland

We are pleased to report that the video has received a considerable amount of attention since its release and has been shown to a number of government officials in Thailand to promote further mangrove conservation and improve local livelihoods. Additionally, the film is showing at a wide range of locations and events in 2016 with more to be confirmed:

EPIC mangrove video displayed (lower right) at the IUCN headquarters in Gland, Switzerland

·      “Muddy Mangrove Movie-fest” at the Australian Mangrove & Saltmarsh Network Conference, Darwin, Australia. May 5^th, 2016

·      Reception of IUCN Headquarters, Gland, Switzerland. 2016.

·      The Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) booth at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, Hawaii, USA. September 1^st 2016.

·      Wildlife Vaasa International Wildlife Film Festival, Vaasa, Finland. September 28^th to October 2^nd 2016.

·      Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival 2016, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

October 14^th to 16^th 2016.

·      International Festival of Sustainable Development Films - Ekotopfilm 2016 in Czech Republic, Fall 2016.

MAP thanks our project holders and funders because without the support of IUCN, the EPIC project holder, and funding from the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety’s International Climate Initiative (BMUB-ICI) this project would not have been possible.

If you haven’t seen the 8 min. video you can find it on MAP’s YouTube channel here: 
Mangroves: Reducing the Risk of Disaster through Nature-Based Solutions (English)

Mangroves: Reducing the Risk of Disaster through Nature-Based Solutions (Thai subtitles)

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