KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Tsunami-stricken Asian nations that are planting mangrove thickets to protect against future disasters must give coastal communities a financial stake in the campaign if it is to succeed, experts said on Tuesday.

Asian nations hit by the earthquake and tsunami disaster that killed about 188,000 people last December have launched programmes to plant mangroves along their coasts as a natural buffer against similar waves in the future.

But the strategy will fail unless governments can convince local communities of the financial benefits they stand to gain from the mangroves, such as firewood, medicinal herbs and bigger fish catches, among others, the experts said.

"We need to think about wealth creation for people living in coastal areas so they are able to link up with a broader society," Chris Gordon, an environmental expert at the University of Ghana, told a meeting in the Malaysian capital.

Mangroves are a family of evergreen trees and shrubs that grow on stilt-like roots in dense thickets, providing both a barrier to extreme weather and a rich ecosystem for marine life.

Following the December disaster, several Asian nations took a new look at their struggling mangroves. Malaysia has called for mangroves to be protected from coastal development.

Indonesia has earmarked 600,000 hectares of mangrove for revitalisation. In the northern province of Aceh on Sumatra, where the tsunami killed more than 110,000 people, it plans to replant at least 30,000 hectares with the trees.

EFFECT LIMITED BY DESIGN

Many of the schemes have a limited effect because they are poorly designed and managed, said Faizal Parish, of the Global Environment Centre, a Malaysian non-government organisation.

"Something needs to be done quickly, but from our perspective it would be more effective to have a clearer strategy plan."

Mangrove trees take five years to mature, he added, so it is crucial to convince local communities to nurture them until then.

One way to achieve this was through credit programmes that lend villagers small sums of money to buy and rear livestock such as chickens or ducks, Parish said. But instead of paying interest on the loans, they could be asked to plant mangrove trees.

Parish said Indonesian villagers had planted 300,000 trees on the island of Java during the past five years, as part of a programme of this kind run by his group.

The loans are waived if the bulk of planted saplings survive 5 years, he added, which gives borrowers an incentive to make sure the trees are not cut down.

Parish said his group planned to replicate the Java project in India and Sri Lanka, the countries worst hit by the tsunami after Indonesia. He estimated that Asian nations would spend between $30 million and $40 million to plant mangroves.

Success in such efforts depended on exchange of information between specialists and locals, a mangrove expert said.

"I think this kind of arrangement can be done if the local mentality can be prepared for it," said Marc Steyaert, former director of the marine sciences division of UNESCO, the United Nations' scientific and educational arm.

"Traditional people have a lot of wise memories of the past that they have learned from local conditions."