Ocean forests: How 'floating' mangroves could provide a broad range of ecological and social benefits

The 2022 report "The State of the World's Mangroves" estimates that since 1996, 5,245 square kilometers of mangroves have been lost due to human activities such as agriculture, logging, tourism development, coastal aquaculture and climate change, and that only 147,000 km2 remain. It is a well-known fact that mangrove forests are among the most productive marine ecosystems in the world, located at the very start of the marine food web (the productivity of biomass by plants is called primary productivity). They serve as a natural nursery for fish and also provide protection against coastal erosion.