East African mangroves
RESOLVE 112
The East African mangroves fringe the Indian Ocean coast of southern Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique, with their most extensive stands concentrated in the Rufiji River Delta of Tanzania and the Zambezi River Delta of Mozambique, where they can reach as far as 50 km inland. These tidal forests are built from salt-tolerant trees including Avicennia marina, Rhizophora mucronata, Sonneratia alba, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, Ceriops tagal, and Xylocarpus granatum, growing as tall as 30 meters in the richest deltas. The climate is governed by the seasonal Northeast and Southeast monsoons and strong coastal currents, with rainfall heaviest in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. Exceptionally productive, the ecoregion acts as a nursery for fish, shrimp, crabs, and molluscs and shelters dugongs, breeding sea turtles, and migratory shorebirds, yet mangroves are among the most critically threatened ecosystems in the world, lost to clearance for aquaculture, salt pans, and farmland as well as rising seas.
About the mangroves biome
Coastal tidal forests of salt-tolerant trees rooted in sheltered estuaries and shorelines of the tropics and subtropics. Mangroves buffer coasts from storms, store large amounts of carbon, and serve as nurseries for fish and shellfish.
Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion
No catalog plants intersect this ecoregion's zone range. As the catalog grows to cover this region's climate band, suggestions will surface here.
Collections for this ecoregion
No curated collection's plants all fit this ecoregion's zone range. We surface a collection only when every member would grow here — partial fits get filtered out rather than mislead. As the catalog and the curated set both grow, this section will fill in.