Mangroves are wetland areas that occupy the tidal zone of tropical and subtropical coasts. They occur in over 100 countries and are estimated to occupy a total area of 18 million hectares. Mangrove forests protect tropical coasts from erosion, buffer the impact of storms, act as a sediment trap and fix more carbon dioxide per area than the phytoplankton in tropical seas. For numerous juvenile fish and crustacean species, mangroves act as nursery areas that supply new recruits to adult stocks offshore. Thus, they are also crucial for the survival of many commercially harvested fish species in tropical estuaries and coastal seas.
The expansion of urbanization, shipping, shrimp cultivation, the timber industry and fisheries have destroyed large areas of mangroves worldwide. At least 50 % of mangrove forest area has been lost in the past decades, mainly due to the conversion of mangroves into shrimp ponds. For the local population, this means the loss of their traditional base of life. If their continued destruction is to be prevented in the future, sustainable forms of management must be found.
Although mangroves and their ecosystems have been intensively explored in numerous individual studies, scientific knowledge about their structure, dynamics and resources is still limited. Therefore, one of the main tasks of the ZMT is to lay the scientific foundations for the protection of the mangroves and of their sustainable use.
Research areas