India has a long coastal line of over 7500 km supporting vast habitats such as lagoons, backwaters, estuaries, coral reefs and mangrove swamps. Among them, the mangrove ecosystem commands the highest importance because of its biological productivity and specialized diversity. After coral reefs, mangrove forests have the highest productivity among the coastal wetlands. With regard to biodiversity, mangroves support a
unique group of fungi, microbes, plants and higher animal species including several species of migratory water birds. Such unique wetlands are in peril due to increasing salinity in recent times especially after the tsunami of 2004. It is time to control the increasing salinity, failing which the Indian subcontinent stands to lose its unique coastal biodiversity which, in turn, might affect the marine food web of the entire tropical region.