Livelihoods
Traditional economic activities vary from fishing and gathering of crustaceans to usages of the trees for timber or tannin production. Research by Barbier (2007) concluded that the economic annual value of just one hectare of mangrove forest (by adding the values of collected wood and non-wood forest products, fishery, nursery and coastal protection against storms) is $12,392.
Next to economic value, mangroves also bear great cultural significance for communities, such as the Concheras (shellfish-gatherers) in South America, as their identity is strongly related to the ecosystem they live in.
Carbon Storage
Storage of carbon in mangroves takes place through accumulation in living biomass and through burial in sediment deposits. With living biomass typically ranging between 100-400 tonnes/ha, and significant quantities of organic matter being stored in the sediments, mangroves rival the sequestration potential of rainforests.
Mangroves under threat
Globally, half of all mangrove forests have been lost since the mid-twentieth century, with one-fifth since 1980 (Spalding et al. 2010). Conversion into shrimp farms causes 25% of the total destruction, according to UNEP (Botkin and Keller, 2003), happening mostly in Southeast Asia and Latin America. Other drivers of mangrove destruction are wood extraction, climate change and industrial development such as harbours and tourism.