Restoring Mexico’s mangroves can shield shores, store carbon

When a rotten egg smell rises from the mangrove swamps of southeast Mexico, something is going well. It means that this key coastal habitat for blunting hurricane impacts has recovered and is capturing carbon dioxide — the main ingredient of global warming.

While world leaders seek ways to stop the climate crisis at a United Nations conference in Scotland this month, one front in the battle to save the planet’s mangroves is thousands of miles (kilometers) away on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Decades ago, mangroves lined these shores, but today there are only thin green . . .