Environment and Disaster Management › Protected areas and habitats
हिन्दी — Read in HindiMarine and coastal ecosystems
Coasts and seas as ecosystems: mangroves, seagrass, estuaries and lagoons, coastal regulation and erosion, marine protected areas and the treaties for the high seas. Prelims has asked what blue carbon is and where India has coral reefs.
Foundation note: Coral reefs of India
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2026: why mangroves matter for climate resilience
- Prelims 2016: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)
Showing 2 of 8 articles, those that changed from 1 to 31 July 2026.Show all
Mangroves
MISHTI
Copy link to MISHTIPrelims and Mains
MISHTI, the Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats and Tangible Incomes, was launched on World Environment Day 2023 to restore about 540 sq km of mangroves along the coast.
- It is funded through the National CAMPA fund, with States planting and communities earning from the restored belts.
- Mangroves grow where the tide meets fresh water; a few, as at Guneri in Kachchh, Gujarat's first Biodiversity Heritage Site, grow inland away from the sea.
What changed
10 Jul 2026BriefThe governing body of the National Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) extended MISHTI by three years to 2029 and raised its outlay to ₹600 crore. It moved the scheme to a landscape based approach to coastal restoration. PIB, 10 Jul 2026: Four new Wildlife and Forestry Conservation Projects for Dolphins, Snow Leopards, Wild Water Buffalo and Indian Rhinoceros approved by GB CAMPA (opens in a new tab)
India's mangroves: what they are worth and what they lose
Copy link to India's mangroves: what they are worth and what they losePrelims and Mains
Blue carbon is the carbon stored by coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass, in the standing wood and in the waterlogged sediment below.
Sediments76%
Vegetation24%
What a mangrove holds
- A lack of oxygen keeps the sediment's carbon from rotting, so mangrove soil holds its carbon only as long as it stays wet and undug.
- Total Economic Value is an ecosystem's use values plus its non use values, such as coastal protection and the worth of keeping it in existence.
- A forest enters a planning decision only once someone has worked that value out.
Where India's mangroves are
- Pichavaram in Tamil Nadu, between the Vellar and Coleroon estuaries, is one of India's largest mangrove forests.
- West Bengal holds the largest share of India's mangrove cover, 42.45 per cent, almost all of it in the Sundarbans.
- There the forest is being converted to fish ponds known locally as bheries.
What changed
25 Jul 2026
- A survey of ten locations found more than 600 hectares of Sundarbans mangrove converted into bheries, cleared from inside so that the forest still looks dense from the water.
The Hindu, 25 Jul 2026: Will restore mangroves lost to encroachments: Minister (opens in a new tab)
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2021: what blue carbon is
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