Mangrove Restoration Potential: A global map highlighting a critical opportunity

Abstract

Rapid losses of mangroves over the past 50 years have had negative consequences on the environment, the climate, and humanity, through diminished benefits such as carbon storage, coastal protection and fish production. Restoration of mangrove forests is possible, and has already been undertaken in many settings, but such efforts have been piecemeal, and many have failed. The current work describes the findings from an entirely new effort to locate and map, on a global scale, the places where mangroves can be restored, and to calculate the potential benefits from such restoration. The work has generated the Mangrove Restoration Potential Map, which provides a critical tool for encouraging restoration and enabling robust, data-driven policy changes and investments.