The numbers that should change how you think about mangroves
A single hectare of mangrove forest stores up to 1,000 tonnes of carbon in its soil, roughly four to five times more than a comparable patch of tropical rainforest. The reason is structural. Mangroves grow at the edge of land and sea, in anoxic, waterlogged soils where organic matter decomposes almost not at all. Dead leaves, root fibres, and sediment accumulate over centuries without releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere. Scientists call this "blue carbon," and it is among the densest biological carbon storage on earth.
