Mangroves are threatened by deforestation due to urban development and coastal infrastructure, unsustainable timber extraction for fish smoking, degradation due to pollution from pesticides and fertilizers, and from hydrocarbon and gas exploitation. Clearance of mangroves for oil palm plantations, rising sea levels and erosion and increased sedimentation are also causing mangroves to recede in Central Africa. Mangroves nurture and enrich coastal fisheries; they trap nutrients and sediments and provide shoreline stabilization, thus protecting coastlines and coastal dwellers from tropical storms, flooding and erosion. Coastal mangrove ecosystems play a critical role in global climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Their high carbon storage and sequestration potential, and the high value of the multiple benefits they provide make them important coastal habitats which warrant protection and conservation.
This report confirms that mangroves are among the most carbon-rich ecosystems in the world and seeks to provide the basis for their sustainable management, conservation and restoration. It highlights the high ecological and economic values of mangroves, and the threats that exist across the region. Where not already the case, it encourages countries to develop a national definition of forests that explicitly includes mangroves, paving the way for mangrove ecosystems to be eligible for inclusion in national strategies for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+).
