Mangroves are critical to marine ecosystems and our climate. They act as crucial nurseries for marine life like fish and turtles, which find shelter and food among the mangrove roots. They also act as critical carbon sinks, absorbing 50 times more carbon than tropical forests by area, according to Professor Norm Duke, a mangrove expert from James Cook University.
Recently around 10,000 hectares of mangrove forests died in the Gulf of Carpentaria, in an area that covered 700km of coastline. The dieback was unprecedented and followed an un-seasonally low Monsoon rainfall, followed by extreme warming with sustained high ocean temperatures.
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