MONTEGO BAY, St James — In commemoration of World Wetlands Day this past Sunday, the Montego Bay Marine Park Trust and the Sandals Foundation on Saturday replanted 104 red mangrove saplings in an estuary created where Montego River and South Gully meet the sea.

World Wetlands Day is observed on February 2 each year, in recognition of the date the Convention on Wetlands was adopted, in 1971. The convention was signed in the Iranian city of Ramsar and is therefore commonly called the Ramsar Convention.

Saturday’s replanting, which was also facilitated through partnerships with the Discovery Bay Marine Lab, C-Fish Fund, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and local fishing co-ops, was the first of several activities to be undertaken as part of a coastal restoration project within the parish.

Prior to the replanting, volunteers collected 400 pounds of garbage from areas surrounding the estuary and later gathered at the River Bay Fishing Village for a presentation on wetlands and the invasion of the lionfish.

Wetlands are naturally saturated areas such as swamps, marshes or bogs that prevent flooding and coastal erosion, while serving as a nursery and habitat for juvenile fish and other marine life.

In Jamaica, they are increasingly under threat from human development, as in the case with sections of Portmore in St Catherine where huge swathes of swamp land were drained to accommodate housing. Port activity bordering the tolled highway into the St Catherine municipality has also reclaimed some swampland.

The situation is pretty much the same in Montego Bay, according to the Montego Bay Marine Park Trust.

“Coastlines and wetlands in Montego Bay have been threatened greatly by human activity, from land filling and dredging activities that accompanied commercial developments since the 1960s to present-day agricultural practices and inefficient management of solid waste,” said Joshua Bailey, outreach officer at the Trust.

“As a result of these activities, this area currently suffers from high levels of nutrification and large amounts of marine litter. With [the replanting] we hope to restore the natural ecological functions of this area and contribute to the overall improvement of the wetlands within the Montego Bay Marine Park,” he continued.

For its part, the Sandals Foundation, which also promotes the preservation of wetlands in Nassau, Bahamas, said it was pleased to partner with the marine park on the mangrove replanting project.

“We believe in preserving ecosystems, such as the wetlands, along with private and public sector entities that share a common goal of protecting our natural resources,” said Heidi Clarke, the foundation’s director of programmes.

Among the long-term objectives of the project are: reducing soil and sand erosion; providing a natural nursery for marine life; and filtering water entering the marine park.

The Trust, in collaboration with the Discovery Bay Marine Lab, will manage the project by conducting monthly site visits to trim surrounding vegetation and monitor the growth and development of the trees.