Large-scale destruction of mangroves contributed heavily to the damage inflicted by cyclone Nargis in Myanmar last week, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Myanmar, home to the eighth largest mangrove area in the world, has lost large swathes of mangroves over the last four decades. FAO estimates from 2005 put the loss at around 70,000 hectares between 1972 and 2005, but 2008 estimates suggest this could be much higher. Losses have been particularly substantial in the Irrawaddy delta, the country's largest mangrove area, where cyclone Nargis struck (see Ignored warnings 'worsened' Myanmar cyclone disaster). At barely 100,000 hectares the delta has lost half its mangrove area since 1975, Mette Løyche Wilkie, senior forestry officer at the FAO forest assessment and reporting service, FAO, told SciDev.Net. Mangrove destruction has also occurred in Rakhine and Tanintharyi regions in western Myanmar, but to a lesser extent due to lower human pressure on these areas. The Myanmar mangroves were destroyed for conversion into rice fields, large-scale shrimp and prawn farming introduced in 1995, extraction of fuelwood and charcoal for Yangon