The Global Mangrove Watch: Monitoring to catalyse the action needed to protect and restore mangroves

Thriving mangroves are key to the health of nature and effective climate action. Global Mangrove Watch (GMW) is an online platform that provides the remote sensing data and tools for monitoring mangroves necessary for this. It gives universal access to near real-time information on where and what changes there are to mangroves across the world, and highlights why they are valuable.

With hi-res information on topography, soil conditions and hydrology, Global Mangrove Watch gives coastal and park managers, conservationists, policymakers and practitioners the evidence needed to respond to illegal logging, pinpoint the causes of local mangrove loss and track restoration progress. It is a tool that can help mangroves be central to climate mitigation, adaptation and sustainable development plans and policies.

GMW is a scientific collaboration with Wetlands International, Aberystwyth University, soloEO, TNC, JAXA, NASA and a host of partners. 

Global Mangrove Watch leaflet, which is available in 8 languages can be found here.

The Mangrove Restoration Tracker Tool

The tool invites mangrove practitioners to record and track their restoration projects across its lifetime while ensuring best practice towards sustainable long-living mangrove groves globally. The Mangrove Restoration Tracker Tool (MRTT) has a flexible structure designed to capture field and desk-based data on mangrove restoration projects in a standardised format. With the MRTT the conservation community will be able to quantify how specific conservation actions lead to outcomes for biodiversity, mangrove resilience, management effectiveness, communities, and governance. In turn, this will help improve mangrove conservation implementation and build a community to support more effective mangrove restoration projects.  

The MRTT was developed by the University of Cambridge, Wetlands International, WWF, and the Global Mangrove Alliance in collaboration with 80 conservation practitioners and scientists from around the world.   

Find the guideline and Sign up here.

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, led by the United Nations Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and its partners, covers terrestrial as well as coastal and marine ecosystems. As a global call to action, it will draw together political support, scientific research and financial muscle to massively scale up restoration. Find out how you can contribute to the UN Decade. Follow #GenerationRestoration.