Rebecca Hersher

It is very cool.

The intricate root system we were talking about earlier holds tight to the mud and the soil around the trees.

So they reduce erosion and absorb the power of storm surges.

So they end up protecting the inland areas from flooding.

That's amazing.

One study found that a forest about a football field wide can actually reduce wave height by up to 66%.

So basically, if you have 100 yards of mangrove between you and the ocean during a storm, the waves that actually make it to your house are going to be a lot smaller.

Huge.

Yeah.

That kind of protection is really only growing in importance because climate change is making powerful storms more likely.

Without the trees to do all that they do and provide that nursery for the fish, the ecosystem essentially collapsed.

The shrimp, sardines, bream, crabs, the whole fish population, the sea life in general was decimated.

So without the fish or anything else to catch, the nearby villages were also in big trouble.

So as a result, some folks left to go find a life somewhere else.

And, you know, the people that stay just had to struggle through these really difficult times.

But Emily, this is the part where this turns into a good news story.

So over the last three decades, there's been a massive effort by scientists and international ecological protection groups to spread awareness about the importance of these threatened mangroves.

And they've really made an impact.

And Kyosot experienced it firsthand.

We started to educate each other, he says.