ANALYSIS

After decades of losses, mangrove trees are gaining ground on coastlines around the world, often in places they have never grown before. Paradoxically, scientists say, warming temperatures and the destruction of inland forests are helping to power the revival.

From the bayous of Louisiana to the backwaters of the Irrawaddy in Myanmar, from the lagoons of West Africa to the billabongs of northern Australia, mangroves are making a dramatic and unexpected comeback.

What a difference a couple of decades can make.

In 2007, ecologists from six countries asked in a letter published in the journal Science whether we would soon be living in “a world without mangroves.” One of the world’s most distinctive, biodiverse, and carbon-rich ecosystems was in rapid retreat in the face of encroaching agriculture, construction of sea walls, ports, and marinas, and rising sea levels. The mangroves seemed doomed.

But in recent months two separate studies have painted a very different picture.…