Grand Cape Mount County in Western Liberia is home to Lake Piso. This large lake accommodates a sizable mangrove forest that is essential to the lake’s ecosystem and village areas as it provide protection against erosion and absorbs harmful storm surges. One of the biggest advantages of the mangrove forest is its ability to sequester large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and store it underwater in the soil for the next millennia. This capability is essential in the fight against climate change and will become increasingly vital in the years to come.
Climate change will also continue to exacerbate the environmental pressures on the mangrove forest as altered rainfall patterns and rising temperatures create additional obstacles for mangrove preservation. The potential extinction of mangroves presents a substantial hazard to the local biodiversity affecting the economic prosperity of the neighboring communities that rely on the timber, fish, and crustaceans supplied by the ecosystem.
