Mangroves: the climate solution that grows in silence

Mangroves store blue and black carbon for centuries while protecting vulnerable coastlines, sustaining essential fisheries for millions, and helping to control climate change.

Many discussions of global warming talk of future technologies, but ignore a solution that already works quietly by the sea: the mangrove. Each coastal forest captures carbon with extraordinary efficiency and, in addition, protects communities and biodiversity in areas where land mixes with salt water. Science describes mangroves as large stores of carbon that are increasingly needed due to climate change. Roots, trunks, leaves and, above all, soils saturated with water store carbon dioxide for centuries. That capacity turns every hectare conserved into a high-impact climate investment and a natural defense against coastal storms and flooding. Beneath the mud also appears another decisive actor in the climate equation. Recent studies indicate that mangrove soils accumulate black carbon from fires and fossil fuels. This extremely stable fraction is trapped for long periods, so it reinforces the role of mangroves in removing carbon from the atmosphere. Although mangroves occupy a relatively small area compared to other forests, they concentrate very high carbon stocks. Also, when deforestation destroys roots and soils, large amounts of that carbon are released abruptly and transformed into new greenhouse gas emissions.

Continue reading in Cambio 16