A Sumatran villager lost ground to the sea. So he planted mangroves

A Sumatran farmer named Harisyah has spent over a decade restoring mangrove forests along an eroding coastline near his village, where the sea is advancing more than six meters a year into carbon-rich peat soils stripped of protective mangroves by charcoal production, aquaculture, and palm oil expansion.

Since 2011 he has trained in restoration techniques, later using village funds as local chief and then nonprofit partnerships to target 25 hectares of degraded forest, enlisting schoolchildren near the planting sites to build long-term stewardship.

The effort stands in contrast to Indonesia's 2020 national pledge to rehabilitate 600,000 hectares of mangroves by 2024, a target the government's own Peat and Mangrove Restoration Agency acknowledges it missed.

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