Mangrove conservation around the world
WWF joins with communities and governments to protect these vital coastal ecosystems
© WWF-US/Mac Stone
Mangroves are vital ecosystems for the Earth’s climate and coastal communities. WWF’s Mangroves for Community and Climate initiative, funded by the Bezos Earth Fund, focuses on coastal ecosystem conservation by improving science and related tools for ecosystem managers and communities within the mangrove forests of Mexico, Madagascar, Colombia, and Fiji.
Since 2020, WWF has helped to enhance protection, newly protect, restore, and strengthen management of more than 2.3 million acres of mangroves, which store 324 million tons of carbon. To date, more than 292,000 people benefit annually from coastal protection provided by standing mangroves.
None of this success would happen without critical work of local community members. Some highlights of their leadership include:
Madagascar
© WWF-US/Mac Stone
Along the western coast of Madagascar’s Tsiribihina Delta, women are mangrove champions, protecting nature for today and tomorrow. Rasina Jamaly is dedicated to protecting her coastal ecosystem for future generations by working in a mangrove nursery that helps restore lost forest. For Clémentine Soava, mangroves are home to the honeybees that provide her income and protect local biodiversity. Voloniaina Nomenjanahary Victorine patrols the Delta forest for signs of illegal logging to ensure existing mangroves stay standing. By caring for mangroves and their biodiversity, these women are restoring, protecting, and building economic opportunities for themselves and their children. WWF helps women like Rasina, Clémentine, and Volonaina continue their work by providing trainings on climate-smart forest management, community microfinance programs, and beekeeping.
Colombia
© WWF-Colombia / Andrés Riveros Pardo
Around Tumaco, a mangrove-lined city on the southern Pacific coast of Colombia, Fedeconcha manages the Afro-Colombian women’s association to boost local economic opportunities. The women harvest piangua— clam-like cockles, also called “concheo,” that live deep in the mud around mangrove roots. The harvest process is challenging, requiring four to five hours of digging by hand to find the bivalves, but yields meat, ingredients for cooked dishes, and shell art sold at local markets and shipped regionally.
With guidance from WWF, Fedeconcha adopted conservation measures—such as only taking piangua that have reached a mature size—and built up branding and market access to improve business performance.
Mexico
© Wendy Goyert / WWF-US
WWF works with communities along the northern coast of the Yucatan peninsula to increase financial opportunities and support sustainable business growth. Sherrill Maldonado is a member of the Taab Che Kaab (“Mangrove Honey” in Yucatec Maya) cooperative that creates honey products from bees kept in local mangroves. With her fellow cooperative members, she coordinated and attended trainings to produce new honey products and increase market access and honey production. She also helped put together a beekeeping and honey recipes guide published by WWF. In 2025, WWF helped Taab Che Kaab officially incorporate their enterprise, providing the cooperative legal protection and formalized membership.
Why governance matters
If well implemented and managed, the laws and policies around mangrove protection can play a major role in conservation and further support management and leadership in coastal communities. WWF scientists and partners recently conducted a global analysis of mangrove laws and policies, finding that 85% of the world’s mangroves are subject to some form of legal protection.
Strengthening the implementation of such laws is critical. WWF works with local and national governments to encourage co-management with communities and share best practices for legal frameworks. This governance work has helped advance:
- Madagascar’s National Mangrove Management Strategy 2022 - 2032, validated in 2024, which bans commercial logging and includes a ten-year action plan for protection, management, and sustainable use of the country’s mangroves
- Colombia’s National Mangrove Program, which includes climate-smart approaches for conservation and restoration
- Mexico’s commitment to the national Mangrove Breakthrough initiative in early 2025 and the work under the National Commission on Biodiversity to strengthen the country’s mangrove monitoring system using artificial intelligence.
Healthy mangrove management means a better future for their ecosystems, local people, and the planet.