Regenerative aquaculture company Pine Island Redfish and eco-friendly apparel brand MANG are partnering to restore Florida's native mangroves, which benefit coastal communities in numerous ways, including protecting against storm surges and flooding.
As detailed by the Global Seafood Alliance, the duo is calling on volunteers to participate in MANG's Propagule Collection Project, an extension of the apparel company's Buy One. Plant One. ethos in which every purchase directly leads to a mangrove planting.
After volunteers collect mangrove propagules and deliver them at a drop-off site, Pine Island Redfish gets to work nurturing the seedlings before transplanting them along the Sunshine State's west coast, where their specialized root systems can assist with limiting erosion.
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Definitely 👍 The restoration project will also support the state's biodiverse ecosystem — the health of which will only be a boon for commercial fisheries and tourism opportunities.
That's because "the relationship between mangroves and their associated marine life cannot be overemphasized," as the Florida Department of Environmental Protection explains. The 600,000 acres of mangrove forests serve as nurseries for all sorts of fish, crustaceans, and shellfish.
However, urbanization and rising sea levels are among the key threats to mangroves, which are also lashed by powerful storms as the warming climate drives more intense extreme weather.
While adopting alternatives to dirty fuels remains the most crucial factor in bringing the global temperature into balance, mangroves (like other forests) also play a major role. They store carbon at a rate 10 times higher than mature tropical forests, per Global Seafood Alliance.
Pine Island Redfish co-founder and CEO Megan Sorby, whose company earned the Best Choice seal of approval from Seafood Watch, lauded the dynamic collaboration with MANG, saying that "community engagement is critical to the success of environmental initiatives — everyone has to be in on it."
"What a fantastic project to kick off our collaborative work with MANG, another Florida-based company with a shared vision for strengthening our coastal community ecosystems," Sorby added, according to Global Seafood Alliance. "MANG's amazing gear supports their core mission to restore our mangrove ecosystems. And at Pine Island Redfish, we are passionate about producing our fish in a way that also supports restorative improvements to our coastal ecosystems and communities."
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