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Management and restoration of mangrove forests to protect coasts are promoted in many countries, including Indonesia. Indonesian mangrove forests are actively restored and managed by local communities for their ecosystem services, including coastal protection. Whether community-based mangrove management (CBMM) is effective is still debated. Our study analysed the effectiveness of different CBMM practices in four Central Javan communities by analysing the capacity of their mangrove forests to protect against coastal hazards. We used complementary interviews, field assessments and literature reviews to collect the necessary information. The overall CBMM performance and success significantly differed for each community's mangrove rehabilitation effort and the resulting coastal protection service. Of the four communities, Bedono performed best in terms of mangrove coverage, forest structure and restored coastal protection service. This is explained by multiple factors, such as application of long-term and integrated CBMM approaches, involving appropriate maintenance and additional measures to reduce wave energy. Our results can help governments, practitioners and communities to better understand the factors that contribute to CBMM's success and failure when restoring and managing mangrove forests and protecting coasts.

Mangroves of tropical and subtropical shores and deltas contribute to ecosystem functioning and human wellbeing in numerous ways but continue to be lost or degraded worldwide at a rapid pace. Overexploitation driven by poverty is often the root cause of mangrove destruction and degradation. The negative feedback cycle between destruction and poverty can only be broken by justly valuing current or introducing new sustainable livelihood options to foster long-lasting local support for mangroves. The large array of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) that mangroves offer have rarely been developed beyond the subsistence level and remain undervalued as &ldquo, products of the poor&rdquo, In light of the global trends towards sustainability and bio-economy, today they represent a major business opportunity for forest communities to produce high value-added end-user products. Even though mangrove NTFPs have been recognized to have high potential toward inclusive development and poverty alleviation and to be highly gender-equal, the development of mangrove NTFPs has continued to attract very little funding or research interest. Several ecological characteristics make commercialization of mangrove NTFPs particularly challenging. Production at economies of scale, including quality standards, as well as marketing and value chain management are all essential in order to develop these products beyond their subsistence role. To be most effective, a systems perspective on NTFP development is needed, whereby product-market development occurs in unison and based on a participative, inclusive and fair development approach. The species/product of choice for value-added product-market development in any specific community or area will depend on several factors. To address many of the typical constraints and maximize the chances of success, we suggest that the use of village or district-level cooperatives may be particularly useful. A better use of the untapped potential of mangroves for local livelihoods may form a most convincing advocate for local protection and restoration of mangrove forests. Therefore, funding agencies, governments and researchers alike are called to invest in mangrove NTFP development as a way to locally incentivize sustainable mangrove protection and restoration.

Assessment of mangrove ecosystem services (ES) is essential to understand and manage the contribution of these ecosystems to the well-being of local communities. They are the primary beneficiaries but their experience, knowledge, and information are frequently ignored in ES assessment and mapping. In this study, a participatory resource mapping (PRM) approach was applied using local knowledge and experience to analyze geo-referenced information on mangrove ecosystem services. Local communities were involved from the beginning in method selection, application, evaluation, and verification. This “inclusive participatory ES mapping” was conducted in two villages (Bedono and Timbulsloko, Central Java, Indonesia) from 2014 to 2015. Participants representing different community elements were involved in the mapping process. They first created a historical map of the situation in their villages roughly between 1980 and 1999 (before rehabilitation) and then described the subsequent environmental changes. The mapping exercise also documented different mangrove resources that are utilized by communities and identified key areas, such as harvesting zones, biodiversity hotspots, erosion zones, different fishing grounds, and newly rehabilitated areas. The maps reveal that integrating PRM and indigenous geo-referenced information can elicit past and contemporary information on (changes in) ecosystem service availability and use. The results show that by involving local communities from the beginning, the participatory ES mapping can facilitate social learning, provide the foundation for the creation of social capital, and equip the community with sufficient spatial information to improve local mangrove management. The participatory ES mapping approach presented in this paper can be used as a model to support local and regional decision-making processes and to enhance community-based mangrove management in other coastal regions in Indonesia and beyond.