MANGROVE PLANTATION AND RESTORATION PROJECT





According to Conservation International, mangroves store ten times more carbon than terrestrial forests. The salty water prevents organic matter from decomposing into methane, while the mangrove tree's extensive root systems catch and hold sediments from upstream, limiting carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon sequestration in mangroves is estimated to be 14.2 tera-grams of carbon per year (Tg C/year), with an average sequestration rate of 171 17.1 g C/m2/year (grammes of carbon per unit square metre per year) and an average soil accretion rate of 5.8 mm per year, according to a recent assessment. Mangrove carbon reserves per unit area are predicted to be higher than those of other forest ecosystems. However, over the last 40 years, we have lost a lot of mangroves. Between the 1980s and the early 2000s, 20 percent of the world's mangroves vanished, owing to expansion in tourism, agricultural, and aquaculture, as well as pollution and climate change. According to a 2018 study published in Nature, this rate has recently dropped to 2% each year. On the Indian coast, a huge scope exists for the development of mangrove plantation and restoration programme as a carbon offset project under the REDD+ programme of UNFCC. Meensou India is developing mangrove plantation and restoration project. Meensou India has developed a database of mangroves found on the coast of Odisha in association with the Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics Sambalpur University, Odisha, India. The link to the database is www.odishamangroves.in