Nicolas Moity, Ilka C. Feller, Ena Suarez

Mangroves of the Galapagos is a regional ecosystem subgroup (level 4 unit of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology). It includes the marine ecoregions of Eastern Galapagos Islands, Northern Galapagos Islands, and Western Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos province mapped extent in 2014 was 36.6 km2, representing 0.03% of the global mangrove area. The biota is characterized by four species of true mangroves.
Today the Galapagos mangroves cover between 37-45 km2, which is about two to three times our broad estimate for 1970. Since 1970 the rate of change has been 1.1% per year. If this trend continues, an overall change of +18-26% is projected over the next 50 years, although there is a great deal of uncertainty in these figures.
Nonetheless, under a high sea level rise scenario (IPCC RCP8.5) ≈-25.2% of the Galapagos mangroves would be submerged by 2060. Moreover, 3.1% of the province’s mangrove ecosystem is undergoing degradation, with the potential to increase to 9% within a 50-year period, based on a vegetation index decay analysis. The mangroves in the Galapagos are subject to a high number of potentially catastrophic threats, including tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, and invasive species. Given these potential threats to mangroves, and their restricted geographical distribution (Extent of Occurrence, EOO, of 34,692 km2), the Galapagos mangrove ecosystem is assessed as Vulnerable (VU).