page_title: Mangrove
section_title: Exploitation and conservation
hierarchical_section_title: Mangrove / Exploitation and conservation
caption_attribution_description: English: Mangroves in West Bali National Park, Indonesia Bahasa Indonesia: Taman Nasional Bali Barat
context_page_description: A mangrove is a shrub or small tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves occur worldwide in the tropics and subtropics, mainly between latitudes 25° N and 25° S. The total mangrove forest area of the world in 2000 was 137,800 square kilometres, spanning 118 countries and territories.
  Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees, also called halophytes, and are adapted to life in harsh coastal conditions. They contain a complex salt filtration system and complex root system to cope with salt water immersion and wave action. They are adapted to the low oxygen conditions of waterlogged mud.
  The word is used in at least three senses: most broadly to refer to the habitat and entire plant assemblage or mangal, for which the terms mangrove forest biome, and mangrove swamp are also used, to refer to all trees and large shrubs in a mangrove swamp, and narrowly to refer just to "true" mangrove trees of the genus Rhizophora of the family Rhizophoraceae.
context_section_description: Adequate data are only available for about half of the global area of mangroves. However, of those areas for which data has been collected, it appears that 35% of the mangroves have been destroyed. Assessments of global variation in mangrove loss indicates that national regulatory quality mediates how different drivers and pressures influence loss rates. The United Nations Environment Programme and Hamilton (2013), estimate that shrimp farming causes approximately a quarter of the destruction of mangrove forests. Likewise, the 2010 update of the World Mangrove Atlas indicated that approximately one fifth of the world's mangrove ecosystems have been lost since 1980, although this rapid loss rate appears to have decreased since 2000 with global losses estimated at between 0.16% and 0.39% annually between 2000 and 2012. Despite global loss rates decreasing since 2000, Southeast Asia remains an area of concern with loss rates between 3.58% and 8.08% between 2000 and 2012.
  Grassroots efforts to save mangroves from development are becoming more popular as their benefits become more widely known. In the Bahamas, for example, active efforts to save mangroves are occurring on the islands of Bimini and Great Guana Cay. In Trinidad and Tobago as well, efforts are underway to protect a mangrove threatened by the construction of a steelmill and a port. In Thailand, community management has been effective in restoring damaged mangroves. Within northern Ecuador mangrove regrowth is reported in almost all estuaries and stems primarily from local actors responding to earlier periods of deforestation in the Esmeraldas region.
  Mangroves have been reported to be able to help buffer against tsunami, cyclones, and other storms, and as such may be considered a flagship system for ecosystem-based adaptation to the impacts of climate change. One village in Tamil Nadu was protected from tsunami destruction—the villagers in Naluvedapathy planted 80,244 saplings to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. This created a kilometre-wide belt of trees of various varieties. When the 2004 tsunami struck, much of the land around the village was flooded, but the village itself suffered minimal damage.
caption: Mangroves in West Bali National Park, Indonesia
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