It was a crisp February morning. The first rays of dawn spilled over the vast canopy of mangroves and stirred us awake in our makeshift beds aboard the boat. The faint hum of Karachi’s distant skyline, which had disrupted our sleep through the night, had almost faded. A rare calm had settled over the sea. The four of us lay anchored near a small mangrove island, barely ten kilometers from the city, yet worlds away. The barbecue feast on the sandy banks the night before still lingered faintly on our tongues.
That stillness did not last long. Soon the mangroves stirred with sound and movement as birds and fish awakened. Another ancient cycle of hunger and survival, of life feeding on life, was beginning. Every creature emerged with quiet urgency, searching for food, for safety, for another day, and perhaps for prey.
We shifted into a small dinghy to move deeper into the mangroves. Before long, the water grew so shallow that we had to climb out and push the boat ourselves. The mud was soft and deceptive, more swamp than shore, and it swallowed our legs almost to the knee. Each step felt uncertain. As we pushed the dinghy through the sucking earth, I was reminded of what Amitav Ghosh calls the “tide country,” where forests disappear beneath water each day only to re-emerge hours later. Here, nothing is fixed. Even the land breathes with the rhythm of water.
As we moved further in, something gentler began to unfold. The mangroves revealed their naked, tangled roots rising from the water like quiet sentinels. Around them, small fish flickered, crabs scurried, and marine life carried on in its unhurried rhythm, unaccustomed to human presence and unaware of our intrusion.
I was reminded of a flight back from Sri Lanka many years ago. From the window, I had first seen these vast green islands scattered across the sea, stretching for miles. I remember feeling a quiet embarrassment that I had lived so close to this wonder and never truly known it.
Per hectare, mangroves can sequester up to four times more carbon than many terrestrial forests, locking it into the soil for centuries
In the early 1990s, with a small band of windsurfers, I finally ventured there. The stretch where the Golf and Marina Club stands today was then deserted, with no houses and no development, only open land and free wind. It became our informal launching point as we set out towards the mangroves, young and unburdened.
Khalid Mahmood, returning from the United States, once brought us a dinghy. It felt like a luxury at the time, allowing us to navigate the narrow channels with ease. I still remember the afternoon when our fearless friend Akbar Zaidi, who refused to wear a life jacket, lost his board and sail to a sudden gust. He drifted farther than we realised and had to swim nearly twenty minutes to reach the mangroves on the opposite side. When we finally reached him, laughing more in relief than anything else, we found his body coated in a thick film of oil. Even then, the sea was already telling us something.
Over time, the signs grew harder to ignore. Industrial discharge, city waste, and thoughtless dumping crept steadily into these waters. The mangroves began to thin. Trees were cut quietly. Marine life seemed to retreat. Our carefree outings became less frequent, and eventually they stopped altogether. What had once felt like a private sanctuary slowly lost its innocence.
And yet, every winter, flamingos and egrets returned, as if to reassure us that something endured.
Standing there now, pushing that dinghy through the mud, this was not a moment for regret. It was a moment to look closely, to listen, and to rediscover what had always been there, waiting patiently beneath the surface.
Egrets moved silently along the muddy banks, their white feathers glowing in the early light. They waded slowly through the shallows, pausing, watching, then striking swiftly at fish or crabs with razor-sharp precision.
Near the exposed roots, mudskippers appeared, their bulging eyes alert to every movement. Living comfortably between water and land, they crawled across the mud, ready to vanish into their burrows at the first hint of danger.
Further out on the flats, the curlew worked patiently, its long curved bill probing deep into the soft silt. It moved with quiet focus, alone or in small groups, its low calls blending into the rhythm of the place.
Above a narrow tidal creek, a kingfisher waited in perfect stillness. In a flash of blue and orange, it plunged into the water, returned with its catch, and beat the fish against a branch before swallowing it whole.
These coastal forests are not only teeming with visible life; they form the unseen backbone of marine biodiversity and urban livelihood. The mangroves serve as nurseries for many species of commercially important fish and shellfish. During high tide, young marine life find refuge among submerged roots, safe from predators. As the tide recedes, the exposed mudflats become feeding grounds for migratory birds, some having flown thousands of kilometers from Central Asia and Siberia.
The mangroves near Karachi are part of the Indus Delta ecosystem, one of the largest arid climate mangrove systems in the world. Pakistan’s mangrove cover is estimated at about 6,000 square kilometers, primarily along the coastlines of Sindh and Balochistan. In comparison, India and Bangladesh together host over 10,000 square kilometers of mangroves, with significant concentrations in the Sundarbans, the Gulf of Kutch, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Collectively, these mangrove systems store nearly 1.7 billion tons of carbon, equivalent to approximately 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
Mangroves are often underestimated, yet they perform functions crucial to both the environment and human livelihoods. They protect coastal settlements from storm surges and erosion, act as natural filters by trapping pollutants, and store vast amounts of carbon. Per hectare, mangroves can sequester up to four times more carbon than many terrestrial forests, locking it into the soil for centuries. They are powerful natural allies in the fight against climate change.
This role is increasingly recognized through carbon credit schemes, where governments and private firms can earn tradable credits by preserving or restoring mangrove ecosystems. These credits may be sold in international carbon markets, generating funding for conservation and offering economic incentives to coastal communities. Yet the trading of carbon credits often remains opaque, and funds do not always return to regenerating mangroves or supporting the communities that depend upon them.
Despite their ecological and economic value, mangroves face escalating threats. Urban expansion, industrial effluents, untreated sewage, and land reclamation have severely degraded habitats around Karachi. What we witnessed was time written harshly upon them, oil films, thinning canopies, and silence where there had once been abundance.
In Sindh, particularly across the fragile expanse of the Indus Delta, WWF-Pakistan has played a pivotal role in restoring and protecting mangrove ecosystems through a blend of science, community partnership, and policy engagement. Working closely with the Sindh Forest Department and coastal communities, WWF has supported large-scale plantation and natural regeneration efforts, established community-managed nurseries, and strengthened local stewardship through Village Conservation Committees and trained eco-guards, including women from fishing households. Its work combines field restoration with satellite monitoring, blue-carbon research, and advocacy for climate resilience, while also linking conservation to livelihoods so that mangrove protection becomes an economic as well as ecological priority.
In doing so, WWF has helped shift mangroves from being seen as wastelands to being recognised as living coastal infrastructure essential for biodiversity, storm protection, fisheries, and long-term climate security. On a broader national scale, satellite analyses suggest Pakistan’s mangroves expanded nearly threefold from the mid-1980s to 2020, a rare counter-trend to global mangrove loss. However, localized losses still occur (for example around Karachi), and the overall ecosystem remains under stress from pollution and freshwater shortages. What is considered in a section of press as losing fresh water to the Sea during floods, is the lifeline of reverine areas and mangrove forrests.
Across South Asia, unchecked aquaculture, logging, and infrastructure development continue to shrink these vital green belts. Climate change adds another layer of vulnerability, as rising sea levels and shifting salinity patterns strain the delicate ecological balance.
Standing amid the stillness of that early morning, one becomes acutely aware of both the resilience and fragility of these ecosystems. The chorus of birds, the splash of fish, and the whisper of the breeze through aerial roots remind us of what is at stake. If protected and restored, mangroves can offer natural defense against climate disaster and sustain livelihoods for generations. If neglected, their loss will ripple through biodiversity, economies, and coastal lives alike.
The tide country, Ghosh reminds us, is a place where land and water are forever negotiating with one another, where daily rhythms are dictated by the moon and the tides. Exploring the mangroves, I felt that negotiation within myself, between memory and witness, between loss and attention.