Gordon Sato

Portrait of Gordon Sato, a Japanese-American biologist who set up a project to cultivate mangroves in Eritrea.

Portrait of Gordon Sato beside mangrove saplings about to be planted.

An Eritrean woman about to plant a mangrove sapling on the coast near the village of Hargigo; Sato in background.

Sato’s co-workers harvest mangrove at an inland nursery outside Massawa. Seawater is pumped in via buried tubes.

Avicennia marina and Rhizophora mucronata, two species of mangrove native to Eritrea, are being planted.

Women are employed to plant mangrove saplings in the intertidal zone, and to clean the planted areas of seaweed.

Protective fencing keeps the newly planted trees safe from huge herds of livestock of passing Rashaida nomads.

Poor but extremely proud, Eritreans are highly selective about which economic development projects they will accept.

Sato’s team has planted over 250,000 mangrove trees on the coast near the village of Hargigo, south of Massawa.

Participation of the local population is key to Sato’s project which involves them in the entire agricultural process.

Woman with wire netting in Hargigo. The netting is Sato’s low-tech solution to the absence of iron in the environment.

Women putting fertiliser containing nitrogen and phosphorous into small plastic bags which will last three years.

Man cutting wire netting in Hargigo. Iron, phosphorous and nitrogen are present in freshwater, largely lacking in Eritrea.

Sato, who authored over 150 scientific publications, designed a low-tech, appro- priate way to grow mangrove in Eritrea.

Small bags containing fertiliser are punctured with tiny holes then buried close to each mangrove plant.

Sato intends to set up a feeding centre for animals on a five-hectare mangrove plantation near Massawa.