Standing knee-deep in coastal waters, environmentalist Andrea Pimentel guides workers as they drive bamboo poles into the seabed to block sediment from choking the tidal channel sustaining a mangrove forest. Mangroves are a key natural defense against storm surges and coastal erosion in the Philippines, which is hit by around 20 typhoons each year. But the country has lost over 60 percent of its mangrove cover since 1918, government data shows, and increasingly powerful storms are threatening what remains by stirring up sediment that clogs water channels and suffocates mangroves at the roots.

Protecting the protectors: Racing to save Philippine mangroves. (2026, July 10). The Manila Times, p. A3.