Records from 1924 indicate that in the southern part of the Ayeyarwady delta, there were 506,000 ha of mangrove forests in the area that covered an area of 200 km by 60 km. The surveys conducted from 1998 to 1999 show, however, that these mangrove forests decreased to 87,000 ha. This means that 83% of the mangrove forests disappeared in 75 years (Mochizuki, 2002). In 1962, a military dictatorship was established. After it adopted a national isolation policy, the economy stagnated in urban areas including the capital of Yangon, and electricity and oil fuel became scarce, causing the nation to depend more on firewood and charcoal for cooking fuel. In addition, the growth in the population further increased the demand for fuel, prompting the felling of mangrove forests that supplied the firewood for commercial purposes. From 1971 to 1993, the Ayeyarwady delta provided 85% of the charcoal consumed in the capital city of Yangon (JICA, 2005). Moreover, as the population grew, mangrove forests were turned into paddy fields as a food production center in accordance with the government’s policy. As described above, the indiscriminate felling of mangrove forests and the development of paddy fields due to the rapid increase of the demand in urban areas from the 1970s to the 1980s devastated the forests throughout the Ayeyarwady delta. The deterioration in the remaining mangrove forests is also under way as typified by changes in the composition of species such as a decrease in the number of useful species of mangrove and the transition of mangrove forests into tangles of various kinds of trees, as well as by a decline in the size of the mangrove trees (Ono, 2007).

The destruction of mangrove forests in recent years is largely attributed to the construction of culture ponds for shrimp farming. After the government announced its open economic policy in 1990, many businesses constructed culture ponds in the delta to produce shrimp and fish for export to the world market. In 2004, according to materials provide by the Forest Department, 1,200 ha of mangrove forests in the Ayeyarwady delta were turned into shrimp culture ponds. The dams and embankments built around shrimp culture ponds prevent currents from flowing into and out of the delta, and as a result, the rise in the concentration of salt in the water affects the growth of many forms of life (Khin, 2008).

The sediment discharge of the Ayeyarwady has decreased due to human activities such as land development in inland areas outside the delta region, which has caused erosion around the forward edge of coastal areas in the delta. Moreover, Cyclone Nargis in 2008 which affected the Ayeyarwady and Yangon administrative divisions, caused the worst damage in the history of Myanmar. The number of deaths and missing people reached nearly 140,000 due to the high waves and the heavy storm (Ya, 2011) and approximately 94% of all buildings collapsed or were heavily damaged. It also destroyed about 14,000 ha of mangrove forests and many plantations (Woo, 2008). The destruction of mangrove forests brought a large amount of sand onto the tidal flats and changed various habitats in the coastal area, resulting in adverse effects on biodiversity. In addition, seawater flowed into paddy fields and tributaries of the Ayeyarwady were polluted with high-concentrations of bacteria in the delta lowlands (Woo, 2008).

In 1993, in order to cope with the depletion of the mangrove forests, the Peace and Development Committee of the administrative division of Ayeyarwady prohibited the felling of any of the species of mangrove in the administrative division except the felling of trees after afforestation and forest nurturing, the construction of charcoal kilns, and charcoal making. Even today, charcoal production is totally prohibited in the delta, but charcoal can be produced under license using wood generated by the felling of trees in afforested areas (JICA, 2005).

The restoration of mangrove forests became an issue to be addressed at the national level, and in early 1980, the Forest Department launched a directly managed afforestation project. In general, within the area of the activities of the villagers, the Department is promoting the restoration of mangrove forests by developing new forest areas through community forestry activities based on the Community Forestry Instructions mentioned in Section (2), and in areas distant from the villages, it is directly planting mangrove trees. The directly managed afforestation began on a scale of 75 acres a year in the 1980s, and several years later, the scale was expanded to 750 acres a year. However, nearly half of the areas afforested by the Forest Department were destroyed by later invasions: the development of agricultural land, the construction of culture ponds, and the selection of unsuitable species that killed many of the mangroves, leaving the mangrove forests in the delta devastated (JICA, 2006). With financial support from the Action for Mangrove Reforestation (ACTMANG), an NGO engaged in mangrove reforestation in Japan based on financial support from Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd., the Forest Resource and Environment Development and Conservation Association (FREDA), a local NGO, initiated a five-year mangrove afforestation project in the Pyindaye reserved forests in 1999. This project takes an integrated approach that encompasses mangrove afforestation based on the Community Forestry Instructions and poverty reduction aimed at improving the living standards of members of community forestry user groups (Photo 1; FREDA, n.d.).

In 2007, JICA launched a five-year project (after the impact of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, it was postponed one year to become a six-year project) to plan the comprehensive management of mangroves in the Ayeyarwady delta by involving local residents. The overall goal of the project is to ensure the sustainable management and use of mangrove forests and to reduce the poverty of local residents. Up to now, the project have provided the staffs of the Forest Department with a wide range of training programmes and formulated afforestation plans needed to systematize mangrove afforestation technology and conducted tests based on such plans. Since FY2011, they have worked to develop technical guidelines and manuals based on the knowledge they have accumulated in the past.

As stated above, efforts have been to ensure the recovery of the mangrove forests through plantation projects at various levels. However, policies concerning the development of mangrove forests are under a chaotic situation. Land-use plans and policies concerning reserved forests are not unified and shrimp farms have been developed continuously.