Geneva: Mangroves and other natural barriers must be urgently restored in cyclone-stricken Myanmar to bolster flood defences against any future catastrophe, environmental group IUCN warned today.

"Destruction of coastal systems, especially mangrove forests in Myanmar, left coastal areas exposed in the devastating force of the cyclone," said Aban Kabraji, Asian regional director for the Switzerland-based IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature).

"Especially in the river deltas, mangroves prevent waves from damaging the more productive land that are further inland from the sea. Restoring mangroves should be a priority for all involved," she said in a statement.

Her comments echoed those of Surin Pitsuwan, secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to which military-ruled Myanmar belongs.

"Why the impact is so severe is because of the increase of the population," Pitsuwan said in a speech in Singapore on May 6.

This has led to an "encroachment into the mangrove forests which used to serve as buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and the residential area," he said.

Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar on May 2-3,has left at least 1,33,000 people dead or missing and around 2.5 million more in need of immediate aid.

The IUCN said that flooding is inevitable in open delta flood plains, but that the buffering effect of healthy ecosystems disappears when natural barriers such as mangroves, lagoons, coral reefs, beaches and strand forests are destroyed or degraded.

Source : PTI