It is a rare piece of good news from the environmental front. Mangrove forests, those tangled coastal guardians battered by development and shrimp farming, are bouncing back. Data from the UN Environment Programme shows a net increase of over 8,000 square kilometres since 2000, reversing a trend that had lost a fifth of the world's mangroves since the 1980s.
This is not a fluke. It is a direct result of policy shifts in key nations. Indonesia, which holds a fifth of the global total, saw a 6% gain after clamping down on illegal aquaculture. Vietnam's replanting programmes along the Mekong Delta have stabilised coastlines. Even in the Americas, Brazil's tightened environmental laws have slowed clearance.
The significance is huge. Mangroves are carbon sinks, sequestering up to four times the carbon per hectare of tropical forests. They are also natural defences against storm surges, a fact countries like Bangladesh have leveraged after Cyclone Sidr. The recovery buys time in the climate fight.
But this is not a story of a problem solved. The mangroves that remain are under new pressures. Rising sea levels could drown them if sedimentation does not keep pace. And the economic incentives that drove destruction have not vanished. The lure of shrimp ponds for export markets remains potent.
Whitehall sources say the UK is watching closely, with potential for mangroves to feature in carbon offset schemes. The Treasury is eyeing it as a cheaper route to net zero. But there are warnings: offsets must not become a licence to pollute.
For now, this is a win. A fragile one, but a win nonetheless. The question is whether governments have the nerve to protect these gains against the next wave of development.
