Environment › Conservation initiatives › Wetland and mangrove restoration
Mangrove restoration and valuation
India is doing two things to its mangroves at once. It is planting them back, through a national restoration programme whose Gujarat target is nearly met and which has a map to watch itself on, and it is learning to price the ones still standing. A valuation of the Pichavaram forest came to ₹2,485.38 crore, most of its carbon held in the mud beneath them.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2026: why mangroves matter for climate resilience
- Prelims 2021: what blue carbon is
- Prelims 2016: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)
What a mangrove is and does
- Their roots slow waves and trap sediment, which is why a mangrove belt is counted as coastal defence rather than only as forest.
- Guneri in Kachchh, Gujarat's first Biodiversity Heritage Site, holds rare mangroves that grow inland, away from the sea.
MISHTI, the restoration programme
- MISHTI (Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats & Tangible Incomes) was launched on World Environment Day 2023.
- It aims to restore about 540 sq km of mangroves.
Where mangrove carbon sits
Sediments76%
Vegetation24%
- Blue carbon sits in the standing wood and in the waterlogged sediment below, where a lack of oxygen keeps it from rotting away.
- Mangrove soil therefore holds its carbon only as long as it stays wet and undug.
Why value an ecosystem at all
- Mangroves shield coasts, breed fish and store carbon outside any market, so planning undervalues them.
- Total Economic Value puts those services in the same units as the uses that would replace the forest.
- Natural Capital Accounting records natural assets and their depletion, which gross domestic product (GDP) misses.
How a natural asset is put in the accounts
Judge the stock
Compare current landings with ten years of landing data
Resource rent
Income left after labour, costs, depreciation and a normal return on vessels
Discount
Future rents brought to present value at a 2% real rate
Asset account
Shows whether the stock is maintained, depleted or regenerating
- The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is testing these accounts under the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting.
What has happened
13 Sep 2026
Gujarat was reported close to its MISHTI target at a review in Bhuj, where a Mangrove GIS (MGIS) Portal was launched to monitor the State's mangroves.
- The Environment Minister released mangrove publications at the workshop and reviewed plantation work in Kachchh the next day.
PIB, 13 Sep 2026: Union Environment Minister presides over Workshop on Mangrove Conservation in Bhuj; Releases Key Mangrove Publications and Reviews MISHTI Progress (opens in a new tab) · PIB, 14 Sep 2026: Union Environment Minister visits Great Indian Bustard Habitat in Kachchh, Gujarat; Inaugurates GIB Soft Release Centre, Sayara Van Kavach and reviews Mangrove Plantation Efforts (opens in a new tab)
3 Sep 2026
A study put the Total Economic Value of the Pichavaram mangroves in Tamil Nadu at ₹2,485.38 crore, and found most of their blue carbon in the soil.
- Days earlier MoSPI had set out how it would build asset accounts for India's marine fish stocks, the same accounting reaching the sea.
The Hindu, 3 Sep 2026: How valuable are mangroves? Study on Pichavaram ecosystem pegs it at ₹2,485.38 crore (opens in a new tab) · The Hindu, 31 Aug 2026: India's plan to begin natural-capital and climate-risk accounting of its blue economy | Explained (opens in a new tab)