Raised mounds helped a mangrove forest return in Alvarado

Mangroves around the Alvarado lagoons in Veracruz are growing again on small islands of soil that people piled up by hand. Mongabay reported on October 30, 2026, that biologist Aníbal Ramírez Soto, now director of the nonprofit REVIVE, watched seedlings planted in straight rows die. From a surviving tree he noticed that healthy mangroves stood in raised clumps. He built a mound of wetland soil and the seedlings lived. He calls the mounds chinampas, after the island fields of the Aztecs.

Cattle pasture had replaced mangroves that were cut and burned, and the soil had collapsed so new trees could not get a start. Ramírez Soto said the fix was to put the soil back. The team and local communities planted about 2,000 trees on hundreds of mounds. When they returned, more than 4,000 had taken root, because seedlings from elsewhere floated in and stuck. By the second year, trees were growing past the mounds. By the eighth year, canopy cover was about 80 percent. A larger project now covers about 15,000 chinampas on 40 hectares, and machines build some of the mounds. The group posted 17 years of results as a preprint, which is not the same as a finished journal review.

REVIVE has also released about 80 Morelet's crocodiles since 2017 and hopes the animals will keep channels open. Mongabay included a clear limit on that part. Crocodile specialist Charlie Manolis told the reporters there is not enough evidence that mangroves fail if crocodiles are absent, and a 2020 review did not settle the question. The forest numbers above are the part the team has counted. The crocodile effect is still an argument, not a measured result.