The Mangrove Alliance

Introduction to the Guidelines

Now more than ever before there is a massive public and private interest in recovering mangrove ecosystems at scale. With this excitement for mangrove restoration, it is imperative to ensure successful mangrove restoration interventions. The Best Practice Guidelines for Mangrove Restoration brings together the latest accumulated local and scientific knowledge about mangrove restoration best-practices into one comprehensive resource. The aim is to align mangrove practitioners, NGOs, governments, scientists, industry, local communities, and funders around accepted best-practices for science-based and inclusive mangrove restoration.

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Executive Summary Press Release

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Translations Executive Summary

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The Best Practice Guidelines for Mangrove Restoration is a joint product developed by the Global Mangrove Alliance and the Blue Carbon Initiative and led by the University of Queensland, Conservation International, Wetlands International, Blue Marine Foundation and the International Blue Carbon Institute, along with dozens of mangrove scientists and user groups across the world.

What we bring:

Step-by-step guidance on best practices for every phase of the mangrove restoration project cycle, supporting effective project design, funding, and implementation from a holistic social, financial and impact point of view.
Centered around well-established community-based ecological restoration approaches, which has been shown to enhance restoration success and longevity.
The latest local and scientific best practices and links to useful resources, gathered into one place for the first time.
A submodule on blue carbon, which addresses how to align mangrove restoration with national climate mitigation targets, or how to produce carbon credits to fund long-term project maintenance, monitoring, and community benefits.
Additional modules related to coastal protection, biodiversity, and fisheries added over time.
Soon available in more languages.

Guiding principles for successful mangrove restoration

These six principles are woven throughout the guidelines and can be applied in every phase of the project cycle.

Principle 1: Safeguard nature and maximise biodiversity

Principle 2:
Employ the best information and practices

Principle 3: Empower people and address their needs

Principle 4:
Align to the broader context – operate locally and contextually

Principle 5:
Design for sustainability

Principle 6: Mobilize high-integrity capital

Catherine Lovelock, Associate Professor at the University of Queensland

“We have synthesized the work of the many committed scientists that contributed to creating this consolidated Guidelines. Thanks to the mangrove restoration science community for sharing their wisdom! Mangrove restoration scientists have been generous with the lessons they have learned from restoring mangroves. This document brings together their collective work in one place. Anyone who wants to restore mangroves will find something useful in the Guidelines.”

Dr. Jennifer Howard, Vice President of the Blue Carbon Program at Conservation International

“Restoring mangroves is a potentially transformative nature-based solution to mitigate climate change and increase coastal resiliency. However, scaling and investments in ambitious mangrove restoration projects has been slow due to perceived risk and low success rates. The good news is, effective mangrove restoration approaches that are science-based and provide fair and equitable benefits have been around for years, however this capacity and knowledge is not broadly available. We hope to change that.”

Pieter van Eijk, Programme Head of Coasts and Deltas with Wetlands International

”We need to think before we plant and move away from mass monoculture mangrove planting towards inclusive ecological restoration approaches that involve local communities and build upon the latest scientific insights. Planting in many cases is not needed. Success happens when we create the right conditions for mangroves to grow back naturally, addressing hydrology, nutrient and sedimentation requirements, and only use planting to assist or enrich the natural regeneration process. In addition, we must create the right socioeconomic conditions to support their long-term protection.”

Urgent collective action is needed

Of the 1,100,000 hectares of mangroves that have been lost since 1996, around 818,300 ha of mangroves are considered to have high “restorable” potential. Urgent collective action is needed to restore damaged or destroyed mangroves around the world. If done properly, restoration can enhance coastal resilience, fisheries productivity, aquaculture, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration.

It is imperative to get it right

Now more than ever before there is a large public and private interest in recovering lost mangrove areas and protecting existing ones. With such excitement for mangrove restoration, it is imperative to ensure successful mangrove restoration interventions at scale.

Best practices

Some regions still see failure rates of up to 80%. This is preventable. The best practices shared in the guidelines are all science-based and provide fair and equitable benefits. They move away from single-species mass tree-planting, which fails to restore functional mangrove forests, to inclusive ecological restoration approaches. This process of effective mangrove restoration is nuanced, complex and site-specific and requires coordinated project design.

Benefiting people and nature

Mangrove restoration efforts using these best practices will more likely result in a sizable, diverse, functional, and self-sustaining ecosystem that offers the desired benefits for people and nature. The sharing of best practices will therefore allow us to dramatically increase the rate of success and move the needle on mangrove restoration at scale.