Magnificent mangroves

One hundred million. That's the number of mangroves the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) intends to plant by 2030. And it is well on its way to achieving this ambitious target. Dubai-based climate tech company Distant Imagery Solutions is deploying drones to disperse millions of seeds. In September-October 2024, it planted 5.5 million seeds in Abu Dhabi. "Our rigging is purpose-built for mangrove seeds," says Jane Glavan, Co-founder. The decision of how many to plant and where is based on elevation, inundation, and other characteristics of the land, she says.

Glavan and her husband, company Co-founder Cory Rhodes, spent a year prepping for their drone pilot, which planted 2,000 seeds in 2020. "We were, like, on ladders dropping seed balls... trying to figure out how they splat in the soil," she says. The seeds they plant belong to the grey mangrove (Avicennia marina), the only mangrove species that survives the harsh Gulf weather.

Before launching their company, Glavan worked with the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi, and Rhodes, a helicopter engineer, carried out search and rescue operations. "I kept asking him to build me stuff because if you can build a helicopter, you can certainly build a 360 [degree] rigging," quips Glavan. Rhodes started building drones in the garage with materials such as wood and 3D-printed plastic.

Outside of the U.A.E., the company works with communities in the Global South. In Kenya, for instance, it is sharing its tech with a credit-generating mangrove restoration project to help lower the cost of quantifying and verifying carbon uptake. The company is helping them build tiny drones that can fly under the canopy while avoiding obstacles to map the growth of mangroves. "You want to use drones in areas that are hard to access or highly sensitive," says Glavan.

Found in the tropics and subtropics, mangrove forests are hot and humid. They are often dense with aerial roots growing out of waterlogged soil. Despite the challenges, mangroves are important to conserve. These coastal ecosystems hold many times more carbon than forests on land, protect the coast against storm surges, and are a source of food and fuel. According to The State of the World's Mangroves 2024 report, mangroves store 394 tonnes of carbon per hectare on an average. Most of this carbon is stored in the soil, and the remaining in above- and below-ground biomass (bit.ly/SOWM-2024). For these reasons and more, a bunch of new technologies is taking root in mangrove conservation — from drones to blockchain.