The Colombian poet Tomas Gonzalez has rightly picked it as the insignia for his collection of poems, Manglares (Mangroves), which advocates for a return to the fundamental completeness of nature. Mangroves, all distinct shrubs and trees, grows in dense bushes and forests along tidal estuaries, salt marshes and muddy shores. They protrude above the mud and have small openings that allow air to enter and move through the soft spongy tissue to the roots beneath the mud.
Mangroves are important ecosystems for promoting and supporting biodiversity. First, they promote livelihood opportunities through fisheries. In numerous tropical coastal settlements, they allow some highly valuable industrial fisheries. They support neighbourhood populations, many of which have few other options for employment or a means of subsistence, and they offer a vital safety net for food security, particularly during periods of turbulence and transition. In light of upcoming unpredictability in food security patterns, they might also be crucial in adapting to climate change.
Mangroves have also been shown to store heavy metals in their leaves, bark, and other parts, reducing urban pollution.
Mangrove ecotourism not only provides a source of income for the local population but also promotes visitor education and understanding of this less well-known habitat. As ecotourism is widely growing, it is a significant source of revenue for local people and governments.
The significance of mangroves in removing carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it in sediments has come to light. Now the focus has been changed to blue carbon, keeping climate change in mind, to meet the goal of carbon sinking through mangroves restoration and plantation. Many scientists think mangroves are much more effective at storing carbon than tropical and temperate forests, whose function as climate regulators has been recognised and established over a longer period of time. The term “blue carbon” is used to describe a number of coastal ecosystems, including mangrove forests, that are major climate regulators. Mangroves store a significant amount of carbon. Therefore, protecting the existing areas is essential to preventing future carbon dioxide emissions.
Mangroves are in peril because of major threats such as plastic dumping, agricultural expansion, siltation of water and industrial development activities near the shore. It is believed that more than 75% of the world’s mangroves are now in danger, along with all the delicate ecosystems that depend on them. There will be further dangers to mangrove ecosystems in the future, in addition to the expected climate change, which includes global warming, sea-level rise, and extreme weather events.
Despite the different initiatives taken to protect the mangroves, there has been a decline in the area under mangroves.
To fully benefit from conservation efforts, it is necessary to have a more in-depth local understanding of the underlying factors that contribute to restoration success at smaller scales. Many social and biological aspects of these situations, such as land tenure, cannot be mapped at the global level. The three keywords are additionality, permanence, and leakage, just like with any other carbon credit.
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