Mangrove Forest Ecosystem: Services, Conservation, Restoration and Carbon Finance

Mangrove forests are one of the most complex forest ecosystems on earth. Focusing on the unique vegetation composition of mangrove ecosystems, these forests are classified as true mangroves, riveting attention to their distinct ecological significance. The world has 64 mangrove species distributed throughout coastal ecosystems. 18.75% of the total mangrove species have been considered ‘threatened’ by the IUCN. 14.93% of the world’s 2.1 million km of coastline is protected by mangrove ecosystems, which sequester approximately 1% of the carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. Mangrove forest ecosystems also provide habitat to many important fauna and multiple ecosystem services to coastal communities. Mangrove ecosystems are situated in such a complex biome between the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems that 14% of the carbon considered blue carbon is stored within the mangrove ecosystems. Multiple climatic, edaphic, and hydrological conditions are behind the complex mangrove ecosystems. Due to various factors, mangrove ecosystems have been significantly degraded in the past two decades. However, the conservation efforts of multiple organizations at the global level have potentially reduced the degradation. Other threats to these forest biomes include anthropogenic disturbances, indirect impacts of climate change, etc. Thus, the conservation and restoration of mangrove forests are major challenges to mitigating the adverse effects of climate change in the riverine, coastal, deltaic, and estuarine zones where these forests exist. Conservation and restoration of the aquatic and terrestrial components of mangrove ecosystems through the implementation of activities, namely afforestation, reforestation, and revegetation (ARR), wetland restoration and conservation (WRC), and REDD+ are important tools for the protection of mangrove forest ecosystems.