Current Status of Mangroves in India: Benefits, Rising Threats Policy and Suggestions for the Way Forward

Mangroves are one of the world’s most productive ecosystems which are at present in it’s threatened state. They provide a wide range of goods and services some of which have a direct value but more often provides many indirect benefits that seem to be hidden. The indiscriminate and exploitative nature towards extracting it’s resources have led to severe loss in area throughout the world. In India, Mangroves were exploited indiscriminately during the 1960s.Traditionally considered as wastelands and dump yards, its importance were understood only over time. Hence, active conservation and regeneration activities were undertaken since the beginning of 1980s, yet the present area cover is only a modest remaining of the past. Such activities are undertaken by both the government in terms of legislative measures and active local community involvement. In addition, threats from Global Climate Change pose additional concerns for it’s regeneration and restoration. The paper throws light on the status of mangrove cover in India, the benefits, threats and the existing policy framework .Existing legal and non-legal measures pose their own shortcomings and drawbacks in terms of lack of effective implementation of many such policies, lax of local communities towards continuous restoration activities, improper resources allocations between the two and thus lays the path for some measures that could in turn be adopted as lessons learnt from international case study examples.