Mangroves as carbon sinks

A new reason to care about mangroves: they are extremely important capturers of carbon. Cutting down mangroves for ports, aquaculture and coastal development releases carbon stored in mangroves, adding to our greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper published online yesterday, Donato et al. provide a much-needed analysis of the role mangroves play in carbon storage. They find that mangroves from the Indo-West Pacific hold a large amount of carbon, not only in their large tree trunks and branches, but underground in their extensive root systems. Carbon stored in the sediment of mangrove forests was found to be on average five times the amount of carbon storage in other forests (tropical, temperate and boreal). The authors find that of all the carbon released annually due to deforestation, 10% may come from mangroves despite the fact that mangroves comprise less than 1% of tropical forests.