Guidelines on Mangrove Ecosystem Restoration for the Western Indian Ocean Region

Overexploitation and general degradation of mangrove forests is a common feature across the countries in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. Accordingly, mangrove restoration initiatives have been increasingly proposed as mechanisms to compensate for the losses and promote sustainable use of mangrove resources. However, in many countries, more failures of mangrove restoration projects than successes are reported. This has been attributed to poor understanding of the local ecosystem requirements and misapplication of the principles of ecological mangrove restoration.