Speaker 1: Hi, everyone. I hope you're enjoying your Saturday morning and
Speaker 1: your weekend so far, and I hope this episode makes
Speaker 1: it a little bit better because it's about one of
Speaker 1: my favorite trees, the mangrove. I discovered mangroves in person
Speaker 1: when I went to Coastal Mexico for the first time,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you what, I fell in love with
Speaker 1: these things. They are amazing. Mangroves colon Nature's best tree,
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: So welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck
Speaker 3: and there's Jerry over there. So let's get to it.
Speaker 3: While we're talking about mangroves. Everybody mangroves gather around while
Speaker 3: we talk about mangrove.
Speaker 1: My new favorite tree.
Speaker 3: It's a great tree. It's a good favorite tree to.
Speaker 1: Have, it is, and this is one of those. I
Speaker 1: think this is the second and probably final that was
Speaker 1: inspired by my recent trip to Mexico because we were
Speaker 1: surrounded by mangroves, literally surrounded by mangroves, and we couldn't
Speaker 1: get enough of them, and like riding the bikes round
Speaker 1: and looking in these mangrove forests and considering what it
Speaker 1: must be like to try and navigate through them, nearly impossible,
Speaker 1: I would say, because yeah, I mean you've seen them
Speaker 1: in person. I'm sure like just how dense these things are.
Speaker 1: And you know we're gonna be talking about different kinds,
Speaker 1: but really sort of the money mangroves sure are the
Speaker 1: ones that we're going to focus on, and they are
Speaker 1: just I was knocked out just by how they looked,
Speaker 1: and I could tell that they were a remarkable wonder
Speaker 1: of nature and evolution. And then after this stuff Dave
Speaker 1: Rus helped us put this together, after learning everything that
Speaker 1: they're capable of, it's just like, what kind of tree
Speaker 1: is this? It's amazing.
Speaker 3: It's an amazing tree. Like I said, it's maybe one
Speaker 3: of the best trees to have as your favorite tree,
Speaker 3: because there are very few trees that are this amazing,
Speaker 3: Chuck Man, and we're talking mangroves, and we should say
Speaker 3: mangroves aren't necessarily like a species or even a family
Speaker 3: of tree. One of the other things that makes them
Speaker 3: such a cool tree to have as a favorite is
Speaker 3: that there's something like eighty or ninety species of them,
Speaker 3: and they're not genetically related in every case. Instead, biologists
Speaker 3: classify them by their ability to survive and even thrive
Speaker 3: in salty water, that in soil that has little to
Speaker 3: no oxygen, which are two things that most trees can't do.
Speaker 3: And that's just the tip of the iceberg in what
Speaker 3: makes mangroves so amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like I said, we're talking mainly about those
Speaker 1: amazing trees that sit up above the water with this
Speaker 1: network of you know, look like fingers just sort of
Speaker 1: propping up the tree, which are the roots. They are
Speaker 1: a woodland tree, also could be called a shrub, and
Speaker 1: they grow in a pretty narrow area between well they're
Speaker 1: subtropical along the coastlines first of all, but they grow
Speaker 1: between literally between the terrestrial and the marine environment in
Speaker 1: salty brackish water.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's I want to say a lot of them.
Speaker 3: It's really not though. I think they make up like
Speaker 3: one percent of the forests of the world mangrove forests are.
Speaker 3: But it's still eighty five thousand square miles, which is
Speaker 3: a pretty decent amount of area for you know, one
Speaker 3: kind of tree. It's about the size of the state
Speaker 3: of Arkansas, and the largest mangrove forest in the world
Speaker 3: is at the mouth of the Ganges near the Bay
Speaker 3: of Bengal. It's called the Sundarbans and that's where the
Speaker 3: Bengal tiger lives, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Agreed. They exist in one hundred and eighteen countries and
Speaker 1: here in the United States, in Texas, Louisiana, and Florida.
Speaker 1: And I thought, oh, surely the Georgia coast so close
Speaker 1: to Florida, surely they've got some mangroves.
Speaker 3: Don't even try.
Speaker 1: Not quite that. I did see some people that were like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's so mangroves, but it's not true. It looks like
Speaker 1: the closest mangroves are about forty miles from the Georgia border,
Speaker 1: near the Georgia coast line. So it was really sad
Speaker 1: that we don't have our mangroves. But they do have
Speaker 1: them in Florida and Louisiana and Texas, in Mexico, that's right.
Speaker 3: And again you said that they grow subtropically, and Chuck,
Speaker 3: I want to share that it was just today that
Speaker 3: I finally stopped and was like, this subtropical thing is
Speaker 3: driving me crazy, Like it's above the tropics on either side.
Speaker 3: It's either above or below, depending on where your perspective,
Speaker 3: but it's not below. It's not below the equator. And
Speaker 3: then I realized, if you're on the equator from the
Speaker 3: perspective of the equator, it's below the equator on either side,
Speaker 3: so it's sub tropical.
Speaker 1: You've never stood on the equator.
Speaker 3: I never have, and I think I can be a blame.
Speaker 3: I've never been to Ecuador.
Speaker 1: Well, we should go sometime. We should do a podcast
Speaker 1: live live from the equator.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and see if we melt.
Speaker 1: I know I will. I'm melting this week. As far
Speaker 1: as man the money mangroves that I was talking about,
Speaker 1: we're talking about red, black and white, and for my money,
Speaker 1: I love those red mangroves. Those are the ones that
Speaker 1: grow along the water's edge. They have those proper roots
Speaker 1: that and if you've never seen a ma mangrove, please
Speaker 1: just look up red mangrove. And they're called prop roots
Speaker 1: because they prop that tree up off the ground. They
Speaker 1: are fully well, not fully exposed because they also go
Speaker 1: into the water, into the soil, but they are largely
Speaker 1: exposed and they are just tangled, gnarly beautiful roots that again,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine trying to navigate through a mangrove forest.
Speaker 1: You probably had to go around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it can be really really thick, both above water
Speaker 3: and below water because of those roots. So those roots,
Speaker 3: if you see them, that means that it's low tide.
Speaker 3: At high tide, they're usually covered up with water. But
Speaker 3: it's like you said, they prop the tree up, and
Speaker 3: so for that reason, because at low tide you can
Speaker 3: see the bottom of the tree and it's above ground.
Speaker 3: They're sometimes called walking trees, but they're pretty neat. And
Speaker 3: the red mangrove is I think anyone who knows about
Speaker 3: mangroves or seen a mangrove probably is what they're thinking
Speaker 3: of as a red mangrove because they're just those those
Speaker 3: roots are just so characteristic and unusual, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the black mangroves are still really cool looking because
Speaker 1: they have these protrusions coming up out of the water
Speaker 1: called neumataphores and just you know, put a pin in
Speaker 1: this they but they allow the plant to basically breathe.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about that later. But if you look
Speaker 1: at a picture of these, it looks sort of like
Speaker 1: almost like little just spiky roots sticking up out of
Speaker 1: the ground all around the tree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, almost like stalagmites. Yeah, and I got that right too,
Speaker 3: by the way, right, white mangroves are. It's weird. I
Speaker 3: don't understand fully why they're considered mangroves aside from the
Speaker 3: fact that they must still thrive and brackish or salty
Speaker 3: water and poor poor oxygen soil, that's it. But I
Speaker 3: guess so. But they grow inland and they have normal
Speaker 3: shallow root systems like any other terrestrial tree, but they're
Speaker 3: still considered mangroves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't think I've mentioned the black mangroves
Speaker 1: to grow a little bit further inland than the reds.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So if you are, you know, looking at a
Speaker 3: cross section of the ocean hitting the land and going inland,
Speaker 3: you would see at the ocean or at the bay
Speaker 3: or wherever, red mangroves on the shoreline actually growing into
Speaker 3: the ocean, depending on where the tide is behind them.
Speaker 3: You would have the black mangroves on slightly higher ground,
Speaker 3: and then behind those on the highest ground you would
Speaker 3: have the white mangroves. And that's what it would look like.
Speaker 3: You put it all together, well, you have as a
Speaker 3: mangrove forest also known as a mangal.
Speaker 1: A mangal, which is one of the more amazing We're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about a lot of amazing things about
Speaker 1: mangroves and mangoals. But it's the only species of tree
Speaker 1: that can grow in salt water, and big time they grow.
Speaker 1: And it's not like they love the salt. We'll see
Speaker 1: in a minute. They have some great ways of getting
Speaker 1: rid of it, but they figured all that stuff out.
Speaker 1: But they can grow in salinity levels of seventy five
Speaker 1: parts per thousand, which is about twice as salty as
Speaker 1: ocean water.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty impressive because I mean, where are they
Speaker 3: growing that's twice as salty as ocean water? You know,
Speaker 3: I think that's just kind of showing off at that point.
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't know if like that inland water, like
Speaker 1: just accumulate salt or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would, Yeah, I think you might be right. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think you've hit upon it. Okay, So they're not
Speaker 3: show offs. They're just doing what they've got to do.
Speaker 3: I mean that they're making lemonade out of the lemons
Speaker 3: that they were handed by natural selection for where they grow.
Speaker 1: So what about the salt. How do they get rid
Speaker 1: of it?
Speaker 3: So you would think like they just they can drink
Speaker 3: salt water and use it like you know terrestrial trees
Speaker 3: use water. Not true. There's actually two techniques where they
Speaker 3: can either keep salt from entering their roots or they
Speaker 3: can take the salt in and then get rid of
Speaker 3: it in certain ways. And so that means that there's
Speaker 3: two types secreters and non secrets. And black mangroves are secrets,
Speaker 3: I believe, right.
Speaker 1: That's right. Those are the ones with a little nubby
Speaker 1: they look like sticks almost sticking out of the water.
Speaker 1: They filter it out and they secrete it on the leaves.
Speaker 1: So that means if you see a black mangrove and
Speaker 1: you see some you know, kind of chalky white stuff
Speaker 1: on the leaf that is salt, like goat, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I should say go lick it, because
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's dangerous salt, but it's.
Speaker 3: Just trust me, it tastes like salt and DDT gosh.
Speaker 3: Red mangroves they're non secrets. So they actually just don't
Speaker 3: allow salt to be taken up by their roots. Now
Speaker 3: that's easier said than done, because their roots are planted
Speaker 3: in the water, right, so there's water. They're taking up
Speaker 3: water from the ocean, from salt water. And what they
Speaker 3: do is they have cell walls that actually act through
Speaker 3: reverse osmosis. It lets water through, but it doesn't let
Speaker 3: solids through, which is quite a trick. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: something that humans have only recently figured out how to do.
Speaker 3: Mangroves have been doing it for who knows how many
Speaker 3: hundreds of thousands or millions of years. But they do
Speaker 3: it in part because they have this hydrophobic, lipophilic material
Speaker 3: called suberin that really serves them.
Speaker 1: Well, that's right. It allows them to get rid of
Speaker 1: more than ninety percent of the salts in the water,
Speaker 1: which also means which I better really think about until
Speaker 1: just now, that they can literally toller I guess about
Speaker 1: ten percent salt content.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw ninety to ninety five percent. But yeah,
Speaker 3: that's still a lot of salt for a plant, totally. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So they have at least adapted in some ways to
Speaker 3: tolerate salt more than other plants. But for the most part,
Speaker 3: they're just really good at at keeping salt from being
Speaker 3: taken up by their roots. I just find that fascinating.
Speaker 1: And I love how Dave puts these. His sections are
Speaker 1: labeled either mangrove Magic Tricks or what was the other one,
Speaker 1: mangrove Superpowers. Yeah, and that's pretty fun.
Speaker 3: They're both apt they are.
Speaker 1: So this is magic trick number two. Is we mentioned?
Speaker 1: You know, I mentioned earlier that they actually breathe through
Speaker 1: these roots. I think typically you might like to think
Speaker 1: about plants as you know, just eating up that CO two,
Speaker 1: which they definitely do. But plants need oxygen and they
Speaker 1: need to get oxygen from the roots, and you know,
Speaker 1: with a regular tree and a regular forest, they're getting
Speaker 1: that like through the soil and these little gaps between
Speaker 1: the soil in mangrove or mangols. I guess you would
Speaker 1: say they can't do that because the tidal sediments come
Speaker 1: in and it's all water log and compacted, so they
Speaker 1: don't have those air gaps that you have in a
Speaker 1: normal forest. So they kind of came up with a
Speaker 1: brilliant little trick to get around that, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the pneumataphors that black mangroves have, those stalagmites
Speaker 3: that are coming up in spikes around them, those act
Speaker 3: as snorkels. So they stick up out of the water
Speaker 3: and they're covered in these little cells called lenisoles, and
Speaker 3: that's where oxygen exchange happens, so they actually absorb oxygen
Speaker 3: through these snorkels. They get taken into the snorkel underground,
Speaker 3: into the other roots of the tree and used for
Speaker 3: aerobic respiration, which is converting food into energy.
Speaker 1: Just pretty and nu metaphor actually is Greek for air carrier,
Speaker 1: so makes sense. Pretty on the nose.
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of those new metaphors can reach up to
Speaker 3: ten feet tall. Did you see that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I didn't. I looked at a lot of pictures.
Speaker 1: I didn't see any. That's all with my eyeballs, but
Speaker 1: I looked because I wanted to see that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't see it either, could be made up.
Speaker 1: So then you've got this, I don't think. So. Then
Speaker 1: you've got these red mangroves that we talked about for
Speaker 1: my money, like the money mangrove, and those proper roots
Speaker 1: serve the same purpose as the new metaphors. They you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, they sit up on those long, sort
Speaker 1: of curvy stilts and they stay above water, like a
Speaker 1: lot of it stays above water even at high tide
Speaker 1: at times, and they are also covered with those linisols
Speaker 1: and they do the same thing. They allow for that
Speaker 1: oxygen exchange to take place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that explains also why there's so many roots
Speaker 3: and so many noumataphors that spread around these trees. It's
Speaker 3: like if you dug up a tree of roughly the
Speaker 3: same size, it would probably have a similar sized root structure,
Speaker 3: maybe a little less, but you don't see it. It's
Speaker 3: all underground. This is above ground, so it like looks
Speaker 3: like a lot of roots, and it is a lot
Speaker 3: of roots, but it's not necessarily more than a terrestrial
Speaker 3: tree would have. We just don't see them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a tree that is dropped trow.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. It's porky pig in it.
Speaker 1: Should we should we take a break at mangrove Magic
Speaker 1: trick number two?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: To number three?
Speaker 3: Pick Yeah, we'll come back with number three right after this.
Speaker 1: Shit.
Speaker 3: So, Chuck, which mangrove is your favorite kind?
Speaker 1: Well, I think I've been clear. I know you're teasing
Speaker 1: me because me and my red mangrove tirades. To me,
Speaker 1: this is the best part of the episode and the
Speaker 1: most amazing thing that maybe besides, and we'll get to
Speaker 1: carbon sequestration because it's amazing too. But to me, this
Speaker 1: just knocked my socks off that mangroves kind of give
Speaker 1: birth to baby mangroves.
Speaker 3: I think the only reason you want to qualify it
Speaker 3: with kind of is because our mind rails against accepting
Speaker 3: that that's what's going on. But that is what's going
Speaker 3: on for all intents and purposes. That some mangroves are viviparous,
Speaker 3: meaning that it means live bearing to where they have
Speaker 3: seeds on their plants that they develop. They're about acorn sized.
Speaker 3: But then rather than the seed falling off and dispersing
Speaker 3: and then eventually growing into a seedling, something much more
Speaker 3: mind blowing happens with mangoes.
Speaker 1: That's right. The seedling is actually produced on the tree itself,
Speaker 1: and they they sort of that sort of I keep
Speaker 1: qualifying it, They self plant themselves. Eventually this thing is
Speaker 1: going to fall off. You've got to look up the
Speaker 1: video on the internet. There are many out there where
Speaker 1: it shows these you know, acorn like things, they grow
Speaker 1: down to these sort of long arrow like, you know,
Speaker 1: green arrows that are pointing down and eventually they just
Speaker 1: go whoop, and they snap off and they go straight
Speaker 1: down and they either stick into the ground at low
Speaker 1: tide or I saw them in two feet of ocean water,
Speaker 1: just going straight through and sticking into the sand and
Speaker 1: they plant themselves.
Speaker 3: They do. They plant themselves in that sandy bottom, and
Speaker 3: then they sprout roots really fast. I saw that they
Speaker 3: can start growing roots within hours, which means that also
Speaker 3: if they don't fall straight down, if they fall and
Speaker 3: they land on their side, they can actually stay themselves
Speaker 3: up by growing roots on the ground facing side and
Speaker 3: then grow roots on the other side as well, which
Speaker 3: is pretty amazing. What's even more amazing is that if
Speaker 3: they fall, they happen to fall it like high tide,
Speaker 3: and it's pretty deep, and they never touch the bottom
Speaker 3: in any way. They'll float along, they'll go out to
Speaker 3: sea and as they're out to see they're a little
Speaker 3: tree growing like growing leaves, getting water from the ocean
Speaker 3: and doing photosynthesis in the sunlight. And they can float
Speaker 3: around for up to a year before they make land
Speaker 3: and stand themselves up and grow roots wherever they land.
Speaker 1: It's just unbelievable because this was an evolutionary adaptation. Because
Speaker 1: my first thought was, well, why doesn't the acorn like
Speaker 1: seed just fall into the water and float around. But
Speaker 1: it must have just not been able to survive and
Speaker 1: got water logged and died and adapted to grow on
Speaker 1: the tree itself and get that little seedling started.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because think about this, chuck. A seedling is a small,
Speaker 3: viable tree. It has everything it needs to grow. So
Speaker 3: it's an individual organism. And when the mangrove is growing
Speaker 3: the seedling on its tree, on itself, that's gestation. Because
Speaker 3: when it drops off, it's like a girafte dropping a
Speaker 3: baby out like three or four feet above above the ground.
Speaker 3: It's the same thing. It's gestation. It's a live birth
Speaker 3: of a plant. It's nuts, man, I love it.
Speaker 1: And the baby draft sticks its nose into the ground.
Speaker 1: It grows from there for.
Speaker 3: Months and months, plant some roots out of its head,
Speaker 3: and there you go.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the mangoals a little bit. We've talked
Speaker 1: about the fact that these forests are very dense, but
Speaker 1: it is a dense ecosystem that is dense in more
Speaker 1: ways than one. It's not just all these gnarly roots
Speaker 1: that you see everywhere. There are all kinds of fish
Speaker 1: habitats and wildlife habitats that exist in these mangoals.
Speaker 3: Yeah. One of the reason why these root systems and
Speaker 3: why the above water parts of the trees are all
Speaker 3: just so thick, like you were saying it's so hard
Speaker 3: to get through, is because of the way that they
Speaker 3: drop seedlings right off of their tree right around them.
Speaker 3: So these mangols develop into these really thick deposits of
Speaker 3: trees and shrubs above water and below water because they
Speaker 3: grow so closely together, and as they grow, they migrate
Speaker 3: one way or another, or they just spread out one
Speaker 3: way or another, sometimes towards the ocean, sometimes behind them,
Speaker 3: sometimes to either side of the shore. But that's how
Speaker 3: they grow, and that's why they're so dense too, and.
Speaker 1: That provides a lot of protection for these habitats. They
Speaker 1: are all manner of fish. If you're in Florida, you're
Speaker 1: gonna see gray snapper in there, or you probably won't
Speaker 1: see them snook tarpin. This is pretty remarkable that goliath grouper,
Speaker 1: which is actually endangered, spends their first six years in
Speaker 1: that mangol before it goes to open water.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's not like a few kinds of fish,
Speaker 3: like things like octopi sharks, shrimp, molluscs, just tons of
Speaker 3: different kinds of fish, Like this is their nursery ground
Speaker 3: because these roots, these tangle of roots, provide a place
Speaker 3: for juveniles to hide out of reach of predators and
Speaker 3: get bigger and bigger because it's also a very nourishing
Speaker 3: place for them to eat too. So they're really really
Speaker 3: important as nurseries for all kinds of sea life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you're talking about eating seafood, the commercial
Speaker 1: fishing industry, and this just sort of shows you how
Speaker 1: important these mangoals are. A one square mile loss of mangroves,
Speaker 1: for us would lose about two hundred and seventy five
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of fish every year. And then that's not
Speaker 1: even to speak of all the indigenous communities that rely
Speaker 1: on these fish to provide their sustenance.
Speaker 3: Right, And so that's just the below water part of
Speaker 3: the mangol. The above water part of the mangol basically
Speaker 3: does the same thing. But for terrestrial and arboreal animals
Speaker 3: like monkeys, insects, reptiles, birds, they make their home and
Speaker 3: their nurseries in those the mangols too. The branches, the leaves,
Speaker 3: the trunks, those are really just as important for above
Speaker 3: ground animals as they are for below water animals.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you mentioned that Bengal tiger. This was also
Speaker 1: in the sum darbins, right. Yes, And this is the
Speaker 1: largest single population of Bengal tigers on planet Earth, and
Speaker 1: it's only about one hundred of them, but they live
Speaker 1: in these mangols.
Speaker 3: Yes. And also attention, Kristen Bell, if you are ambivalent
Speaker 3: about mangrove forests, prepared to care because in Panama, the
Speaker 3: pigmy three toadsloth, critically endangered by the way, only makes
Speaker 3: its home in mangrove forests. Sound there, right, So you
Speaker 3: got to care now.
Speaker 1: I still watch that video of her in that sloth
Speaker 1: about once every two years. Yes, It's just one of
Speaker 1: the great human reactions to something.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I remember how hardened we were when we
Speaker 3: realized that she didn't touch it, even though you clearly
Speaker 3: wanted to more than she's ever wanted to do anything
Speaker 3: in her life. But she doesn't. She didn't do it,
Speaker 3: you know, so good for her.
Speaker 1: It's pretty great. I think we can move on to
Speaker 1: some superpowers, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mangrove superpower number one, which is coastline protection, which
Speaker 3: is pretty important if you live along the coast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a big one. One great benefit of
Speaker 1: all those above ground gnarly mess of roots that are
Speaker 1: everywhere is and it just makes perfect common sense when
Speaker 1: you look at them. Is they make great wave breaks
Speaker 1: any kind of wave, even like a tsunamic.
Speaker 3: Is that a word?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: It is now I think it's a great word. Right.
Speaker 1: Tsunami's wave is going to be cut down big time
Speaker 1: when it hits. This stuff is just gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: just cut through and disperse it in in a really
Speaker 1: profound way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because there's so many different like roots and individual
Speaker 3: things to bump into on the way to the shore
Speaker 3: that it's going to reduce its energy, which means that
Speaker 3: it reduces one of the pernicious effects that waves have
Speaker 3: on shore, which is erosion. And not only does it
Speaker 3: reduce erosion because the waves don't have enough energy to
Speaker 3: take stuff back out to sea, it actually has them
Speaker 3: deposit the sediments that they're bringing to the shore in
Speaker 3: the mangrove swamps. And if you compare it, if you
Speaker 3: combine that, i should say, with the really low oxygen
Speaker 3: environments that make up the mucky bottom in a mangrove
Speaker 3: mangal I guess you can kind of flash back to
Speaker 3: our coal the Mystery of Coal episode where we talked
Speaker 3: a lot about how swamps work like that. So mangrove
Speaker 3: swamps are very much like that as well. But then
Speaker 3: in addition to that, they have ocean sediments being brought
Speaker 3: all this organic stuff being brought from the ocean's layering
Speaker 3: with the mucky sediment that from the mangroves falling into
Speaker 3: the muck, which means that they're like holding on to
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff and building up soil as a
Speaker 3: matter of fact, so much so that they outpaces sea
Speaker 3: level rises in some areas.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean this kind of falls under one of
Speaker 1: their other superpowers is the fact that they are literally
Speaker 1: sequestering carbon. But I think that they add about and
Speaker 1: we'll get to that in more detail in a minute.
Speaker 1: But in Australia, some mangrove or some mangals in Australian
Speaker 1: belize at about ten millimeters or more of coastal soil
Speaker 1: each year one hundredth of a meter. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: that doesn't sound like that much, but a sea level
Speaker 1: rise is coming in at about three point two meters
Speaker 1: a year or so in parts of Australian belize it
Speaker 1: is actually outpacing climate change.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty cool, and that's really really important because
Speaker 3: the sea levels rise. If the soil level is rising,
Speaker 3: we don't have to work quite as much about sea
Speaker 3: level rise there. But that's only in some spots, as
Speaker 3: we'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as far as the waves go, and we're
Speaker 1: talking about tsunamis well with just regular waves. For every
Speaker 1: one hundred meters of a mangro forest that a wave
Speaker 1: will hit, its height can decrease by as much as
Speaker 1: sixty six percent.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And if you're looking at storm surges, which is you know,
Speaker 1: one of the big dangers, it's not just the wave,
Speaker 1: it's that water surge. If you listen to our tsunami episode,
Speaker 1: there was a study that found that surge depths were
Speaker 1: reduced about a little over a foot and a half
Speaker 1: for every little more than a half a mile fifty
Speaker 1: centimeters over every kilometer. And that doesn't sound like a ton,
Speaker 1: but if you've got a mangrove forest that's you know,
Speaker 1: several miles deep, then we're talking you know, six or
Speaker 1: seven feet of less storm surge happening, and that can
Speaker 1: make a really big difference. In flow.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, because the storm surges would get you. I
Speaker 3: mean it can flood miles and miles inland. It carries
Speaker 3: all sorts of debris with it. It has so much energy
Speaker 3: it can just rip buildings down. It's a real problem
Speaker 3: from hurricanes. It's that flooding from the storm surge. But
Speaker 3: because those mangroves are there to absorb a bunch of
Speaker 3: that energy, it just doesn't have the opportunity to come
Speaker 3: nearly as far inland. So mangrove forests, especially thick ones,
Speaker 3: save human lives and you would guess animal lives too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we've seen the sort of this bear out
Speaker 1: in very sad ways when mangro forests have disappeared. I
Speaker 1: think it was in the Indo Pacific region in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties they used to have about five miles like
Speaker 1: deep of mangrove forest. By the nineteen nineties they were
Speaker 1: depleted because of shrimp farming. We'll talk about that later
Speaker 1: as well, but basically, you know, human cause depletion. And
Speaker 1: in ninety one there was a cyclone that hit the
Speaker 1: coast of Bangladesh where there were no longer any mangrove
Speaker 1: for us to cut down on that impact and there
Speaker 1: was no buffer, and there was a big twenty foot
Speaker 1: storm surge and almost one hundred and forty thousand people died, right.
Speaker 3: I saw that they had a lot of those people
Speaker 3: died because they weren't they didn't use storm shelters in
Speaker 3: addition to the mangrove buffer being gone, and that they
Speaker 3: had built the storm shelters Chuck after a nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: cyclone that killed five hundred thousand people in Bangladesh.
Speaker 1: Wow, can you believe that?
Speaker 3: Can you imagine a storm killing half a million people
Speaker 3: in your country or your little area.
Speaker 1: That's insane, it is, that's devastating.
Speaker 3: Biblical you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They did some studies too with the tsunami and
Speaker 1: the Indian Ocean in two thousand and four, and they
Speaker 1: found that the mangroves there were about one hundred meters
Speaker 1: deep and they at least helped reduce those waves between
Speaker 1: five and thirty percent. So that's a big deal. You know,
Speaker 1: six feet of storm surge up to thirty percent of
Speaker 1: wave height and the initial rush in from the ocean
Speaker 1: is you're saving a lot of lives in that case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean you saw how bad the Indian
Speaker 3: Ocean tsunami was too. It just makes you wonder, like
Speaker 3: how much worse it could have been without mangroves. So
Speaker 3: I say we take our second break and we come
Speaker 3: back and talk about carbon sequestration.
Speaker 1: That's right, aka superpower number two. All right, we had
Speaker 1: promise of superpower number two and we tease a little
Speaker 1: bit early earlier I did about carbon sequestration. So we
Speaker 1: need to talk a little bit about what people are
Speaker 1: calling a blue carbon ecosystem, blue sort of referencing the ocean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's basically the same thing. Like you know,
Speaker 3: trees inland capturing carbon and storing them in their bits
Speaker 3: and parts. This is this is just coastal vegetation doing
Speaker 3: the same thing. And the thing is is, like trees,
Speaker 3: they're really efficient at capturing carbon and storing it. But
Speaker 3: because of our friends fungi and rot, when the tree dies,
Speaker 3: that carbon gets released back into the ecosystem and even
Speaker 3: possibly back into the atmosphere if say, like a wildfire
Speaker 3: happens atmosphere hot wheels.
Speaker 1: That is right, But you know how we mentioned before
Speaker 1: that with that soil that the water is basically the
Speaker 1: ocean water is just sitting on top of it is
Speaker 1: not it's just building up to that salty peat and
Speaker 1: that carbon is not being released like it does in
Speaker 1: interrestrial forest, and it's not breaking down. So it is
Speaker 1: a champion at storing carbon. Not only good at it,
Speaker 1: but really good at it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like the Judah Friedlander of forests as far
Speaker 3: as carbon sequestration go.
Speaker 1: I love Judi Freelander. We actually met him once, but
Speaker 1: I don't get the joke.
Speaker 3: Oh he always wore a hat that'said World Show. Oh okay,
Speaker 3: and he was always boasting about stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I love that guy. When we met him
Speaker 1: at an event with Jesse Thorn and Hodgemen many years ago,
Speaker 1: and this was kind of during his run on thirty
Speaker 1: Rock thirty Rock, and this is when I was also
Speaker 1: wearing my Last Chance garage at all the time, which
Speaker 1: I haven't put on in a couple of years. I
Speaker 1: hate to say so probably a few years. But he
Speaker 1: I remember when I met him, he went and in
Speaker 1: that face of his he kind of peered up at
Speaker 1: my hat and that patch and hear it. All right, okay, cool.
Speaker 3: That was a great chee the freed Land.
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I got the stamp of approval
Speaker 1: from the hat guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely the hat guy version.
Speaker 1: It's cool.
Speaker 3: So but yeah, so, mangroves are the champion of carbon sequestrations,
Speaker 3: so much so that they are four times more efficient
Speaker 3: than terrestrial vegetation at storing carbon, which makes them like
Speaker 3: a bona fide carbon sink. Mangrove forests are and again
Speaker 3: it's because there's just no decay, there's no fungus, there's
Speaker 3: no rot. All the stuff that all the vegetation that
Speaker 3: dies and falls down into the muck just gets stuck
Speaker 3: there and covered over and doesn't get a chance to
Speaker 3: break down. So as long as you don't dig up
Speaker 3: or destroy a mangro forest and cut up the peat
Speaker 3: to use it as cheap fuel, you've got a really
Speaker 3: good carbon sink on your hands.
Speaker 1: Yeah. To the tune of worldwide mangal's account for about
Speaker 1: six point four billion tons of carbon that's being held
Speaker 1: in check. That means when you do do something like
Speaker 1: you hinted at, it can have devastating effects for the world. Surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: If you cut down a mangrove forest, that carbon is
Speaker 1: going to be released, That sequestered carbon is slowly going
Speaker 1: to creep back into the atmosphere. From twenty to twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: roughly one hundred and twenty two million tons of carbon
Speaker 1: extra carbon were released into the atmosphere because of the
Speaker 1: destruction of mangrove forests, and between eighty and two thousand
Speaker 1: and thirty percent of the mangols of the world have
Speaker 1: been stripped away and it is outpacing like the tropical
Speaker 1: rainforest construction.
Speaker 3: That's mind boggling because if you just hear the figures
Speaker 3: on how frequently and how much rainforest is cut down,
Speaker 3: the idea that mangrove forest is outpacing it is pretty nuts.
Speaker 3: But apparently Me and Mar is the current hot spot
Speaker 3: for mangrove D four station. Between nineteen ninety six and
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, Me and Mark cut down sixty percent of
Speaker 3: its mangals just gone. And part of the problem is
Speaker 3: is like you can restore mangrove forest. Fortunately, we'll talk
Speaker 3: about some people who do that, but it can take
Speaker 3: a while. And sometimes when you restore some mangroves, you
Speaker 3: put the seedlings in and typhoon or a cyclone or
Speaker 3: a hurricane comes along and just washes them all away.
Speaker 3: So if your timing's wrong. It might take a very
Speaker 3: long time for you to restore a mangrove forest, so
Speaker 3: it's not something you want to cut down willy nilly. Basically, No.
Speaker 1: Shrimp farming is something we mentioned earlier in passing. But
Speaker 1: they are the biggest culprit, responsible for thirty five percent
Speaker 1: of mangrove forest loss. And you know, people love shrimp
Speaker 1: all around the world, and in Thailand in the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties and other places as well, but especially Thailand,
Speaker 1: they cut down a lot of mangro forests to make
Speaker 1: these shrimp farms along the hostline. And then you've also
Speaker 1: got the sea level rise that's causing destruction. We mentioned
Speaker 1: parts of Australian belize that those soiled deposits are outpacing it,
Speaker 1: but that's only in a couple of those places. It
Speaker 1: is not doing that in other areas.
Speaker 3: No, So that means that sea level rise is out
Speaker 3: pacing soil deposition there. I want to say one more
Speaker 3: thing about shrimp farming too. I looked a little bit
Speaker 3: into it and I cannot decide maybe it deserves its
Speaker 3: own episode. Who knows. Okay, one of the other problems
Speaker 3: with shrimp farming in addition to a shrimp farm sharing
Speaker 3: the same kind of land or a mangro forest that
Speaker 3: land occupies being desirable for a shrimp farm, so you
Speaker 3: cut down mangro forest to build a shrimp farm, is
Speaker 3: that when you harvest shrimp, you basically have to refresh
Speaker 3: the water. So shrimp farmers typically just basically open a
Speaker 3: dam and let all the water out, and that water's
Speaker 3: filled with tons of nutrients that overwhelm the carrying opacity
Speaker 3: of the ecosystems the mangro forests around the shrimp farm,
Speaker 3: and you get what's called an algae bloom, which sucks
Speaker 3: up all the oxygen, kills off all the fish, and
Speaker 3: has just this devastating effect on the ecosystem surrounding it.
Speaker 3: So shrimp farming is really hard on the areas where
Speaker 3: it takes place, not just from the shrimp farms themselves,
Speaker 3: but from what comes out of the shrimp farms as well.
Speaker 3: And there's just so many basic good best practices that
Speaker 3: could be followed that just aren't followed that there's almost
Speaker 3: like a general like the coming out of the shrimp
Speaker 3: farming industry as far as I can tell, that really
Speaker 3: needs to be fixed.
Speaker 1: It's almost as if they just wanted to continue to
Speaker 1: make as much money as they can before they're regulated
Speaker 1: in some way.
Speaker 3: But I mean, what are you going to do if
Speaker 3: you try to regulate them at all? You've got a
Speaker 3: nanny state on your hands. And who wants that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it shrimp farming is just one tiny fraction
Speaker 1: of the great amounts of harm that are happening to
Speaker 1: the because of lots of things, but commercial fishing and
Speaker 1: is certainly one of them.
Speaker 3: I will say, though, it's really hard to turn down
Speaker 3: shrimp on pizza that you're heading or something. No, no,
Speaker 3: that's that was from years back. I used to love
Speaker 3: shrimp on pizza.
Speaker 1: All right, talk to me more about this. What are
Speaker 1: we talking? You just throw some shrimp on a regular
Speaker 1: cheese or is it like a barbecue pineapple thing?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, a regular pizza. But you don't
Speaker 3: want to use just any shrimp. You certainly don't want
Speaker 3: to use jumbo shrimp. You want to use the little
Speaker 3: tiny salad shrimp because they cook just enough with the pizza.
Speaker 3: Bigger shrimp might still be partially raw, it's going to
Speaker 3: be too big to eat. Yeah, you just throw some
Speaker 3: of those. Well, now, I think they usually come already
Speaker 3: cook now that I think about it, but you just
Speaker 3: throw a couple of handfuls on your pizza, put it
Speaker 3: in the oven, and they thank me later. Basically, Oh, man,
Speaker 3: I love shrimp.
Speaker 1: I don't know about shrimp and pizza.
Speaker 3: Well, now I feel bad about eating shrimp, knowing how
Speaker 3: bad shrimp farming is.
Speaker 1: I know. It's uh, it's another wake up call, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, and I've been awokened because I'm now farming
Speaker 3: my own shrimp here at home in a very sustainable
Speaker 3: manner so that I can have it on my pizza.
Speaker 1: Ah, bathub shrimp, It's delicious.
Speaker 3: We don't take baths anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yiman's like, why do you have an out of
Speaker 1: orders on on our bathroom door?
Speaker 3: Right? I'm still trying to figure out how to break
Speaker 3: the news to U me we don't really have a
Speaker 3: working bathsub anymore. So.
Speaker 1: There are also invasive species that can totally wreck the
Speaker 1: health of a man gaul. In the seventies in China,
Speaker 1: they were trying to do the right thing. I think
Speaker 1: there were conservationists that transplanted some marsh grasses that were
Speaker 1: from the United States there to try and slow erosion,
Speaker 1: but it crowded out mangroves. And then in Texas they
Speaker 1: weren't trying to do the right thing. They the vision
Speaker 1: game officials there, they said, Hey, people like hunting this
Speaker 1: exotic Asian antelope. It's called a nilghai. I guess n ilgai.
Speaker 1: So let's put them in Texas so people can hunt them.
Speaker 1: And it turns out they love to eat mangroves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they're being deforested by the game that was
Speaker 3: imported to Texas to hunt, which means I'm sure there's
Speaker 3: huge bounties on these things now too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's funny how that all works out.
Speaker 3: So there are people who are like, we really need
Speaker 3: to work on this, We need to get mangroves back,
Speaker 3: and there are places where this is the good news.
Speaker 3: Mangrove deforestation globally speaking, on average has actually stopped progressing
Speaker 3: and is now starting to decline.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The deforestation is so people are, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: getting hip to the idea that we really need these things.
Speaker 3: They provide countless services for us humans, so even the
Speaker 3: most selfish human can get behind mangrove restoration, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think there's about forty two percent
Speaker 1: of the worldwide mangols are protected now, but you need
Speaker 1: that number at like ninety two, well at one hundred.
Speaker 1: But I would feel much better if it was like
Speaker 1: in the eighties or nineties, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And not only that, like areas that have been
Speaker 3: developed coastly need to replant the mangroves that they cut
Speaker 3: down to build because they need them really bad. You
Speaker 3: need mangrove buffers, as we've found. Whatever you can get
Speaker 3: is helpful.
Speaker 1: That's right. But there's another kind of clever financial instrument,
Speaker 1: as they call it, called blue bonds. It is a
Speaker 1: subset of green bonds. Green bonds came around a while ago,
Speaker 1: and these are basically, if you have money and you
Speaker 1: want to invest responsibly in a way that not only
Speaker 1: doesn't impact the environment but can help the environment, you
Speaker 1: invest in a green bond, or if you're really into
Speaker 1: the ocean, the subset of blue bonds, which were first
Speaker 1: introduced in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: Right, And so like you want to offset your emissions,
Speaker 3: you buy a blue bond, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: you've just paid somebody to go plant some mango or
Speaker 3: not mango, maybe mango too, but mangrove forests.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, mango forest.
Speaker 3: It sounds delicious, would be I'd be like planet in
Speaker 3: my backyard. That's right, I want to plane it with
Speaker 3: my blue bond.
Speaker 1: So look into blue bonds and green bonds. It's I
Speaker 1: saw something depressing the other day when they were I
Speaker 1: don't know what they were talking about on the news,
Speaker 1: but they basically said, like, if you have an IRA like,
Speaker 1: you were supporting all kinds of companies that you would
Speaker 1: probably never support in real life.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, definitely mutual funds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mutual funds. Just everything's all lumped in. So they
Speaker 1: were trying to encourage people that if they're able to
Speaker 1: to be a little more selective in what they choose
Speaker 1: to invest in.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a lot of sustainable mutual funds too that
Speaker 3: where they're you know, very carefully selected. Unfortunately, that means
Speaker 3: the management fee is going to be higher. But if
Speaker 3: you care, it doesn't really matter, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh, is it really a higher management fee?
Speaker 3: Yeah, any time it requires any additional thought or effort,
Speaker 3: the management he just automatically goes up.
Speaker 1: I had to click them three extra things.
Speaker 3: Right, I had to find out what these blue bonds
Speaker 3: were that's my impression of a mutual fund manager.
Speaker 1: Yeah, financial advisor. If that's your financial advisors, another wrong person.
Speaker 3: I meet him at Burger King every couple of weeks
Speaker 3: in the back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where else did you meet?
Speaker 3: You got anything else?
Speaker 1: You got nothing else?
Speaker 3: Up with Mangroves, Up with Mangroves. And since we both
Speaker 3: set up with Mangroves, everybody, that means it's time for
Speaker 3: a listener mail.
Speaker 1: This is a thank you from a Satanist. We had
Speaker 1: a great podcast that we must have put this on
Speaker 1: a select recently.
Speaker 3: I guess yeah, like two weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Okay, Hey, guys discovered your podcast in twenty eleven. Have
Speaker 1: been hooked ever since. Your informative, banter filled episodes remained
Speaker 1: a welcome constant in my life throughout college, adult years
Speaker 1: in now parenthood was helping me stay sane during sleepless
Speaker 1: nights with my newborns. When I saw the episode on
Speaker 1: Satanism guess ahead and listen to it previously, I was
Speaker 1: simultaneously excited and nervous. I would hope you'd give it
Speaker 1: the usual Josh and Chuck treatment, and I was not disappointed.
Speaker 1: Over the years, I've been given a lot of grief.
Speaker 1: Being a Satanist, people often assume that I'm a very
Speaker 1: devout Christian based on the way I look, and often
Speaker 1: go from praising me to threatening my family upon learning
Speaker 1: that I followed the tenants set forth by the Satanic
Speaker 1: Temple by shedding some light on the true nature of Satanism,
Speaker 1: I feel that you have given many people a look
Speaker 1: into the practice in a non threatening way, and hopefully
Speaker 1: this will help people choose kindness over fear based hatred
Speaker 1: when interacting with Satanist in the future. And thank you
Speaker 1: for being bold enough to put this episode out in
Speaker 1: the world. I'm sure it wasn't that easy, but this
Speaker 1: long time listener appreciates it. Your friendly Satanist. Donna, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, Donna, Donna a Satanist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a good one because I went back
Speaker 3: and listened to it to QA it before it was
Speaker 3: a selectime. I was like, this is a really good episode. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But there was one thing at the beginning, Chuck, that
Speaker 3: now I wish we had back, because a couple of
Speaker 3: people wrote in and it was that we coaight at
Speaker 3: the beginning, saying like, if you're, you know, a Christian,
Speaker 3: you probably don't want to listen to this, and people
Speaker 3: wrote in and said, no, like you, you should not
Speaker 3: have said that, because there's plenty of people out there
Speaker 3: who should hear this and you know, change their views
Speaker 3: on people who hold these views. So if you go
Speaker 3: back and listen to that, just plug your ears for
Speaker 3: that first part and then listen to it through again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was forty year old Chuck talking, right, not
Speaker 1: fifty one year old Chuck.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: It's Oh, that's a weird number to say.
Speaker 3: It is, Chuck. Fifty one is a weird number, and
Speaker 3: it's going to be a weird time in your life.
Speaker 3: I'm sure of it.
Speaker 1: Juck. That's one thing I'll always say it is You'll
Speaker 1: always be younger than me. No matter how much I
Speaker 1: want you to speed up the aging process, You'll always
Speaker 1: be younger.
Speaker 3: You would have to travel to Mars and suspended animation
Speaker 3: and I might just have to stay here on.
Speaker 1: Earth for me to catch all right, I'm going to
Speaker 1: look into that.
Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, Donna. We appreciate that big time. And
Speaker 3: if you want to be like Donna and send us
Speaker 3: some kudos, we'll take them. You can send it in
Speaker 3: an email to Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
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