Holding the ground on mangroves

Mangroves are among the Earth’s most productive ecosystems and they produce many goods and environmental services. When sustainably managed, they can support the livelihoods of millions of coastal people while storing globally significant quantities of carbon and reducing the vulnerability of coastal regions to storm surges and other threats.

The area of mangrove forests is decreasing in many tropical countries, however, due to poor management and increasing demand for coastal lands for development. A high priority for the global community, therefore, is arresting mangrove loss and restoring degraded mangrove ecosystems.