Marine Resources Council is an environmental nonprofit dedicated to protecting and restoring the Indian River Lagoon and its watershed through science, education, and advocacy. Aligned with our work on shoreline restoration, we operate one of the largest mangrove nurseries in Florida. Through this nursery, we impact restoration and mitigation efforts state-wide and are one of the few nurseries that can provide mangroves for larger-scale projects.

The need: Tens of thousands of mangroves are needed across Florida for restoration and mitigation projects, however there are not enough trees in the state to fill many requests. Red mangroves are slow-growing, taking at least three years to reach a size suitable for planting. White mangroves and black mangroves are more sensitive to tidal effects and have a lower propagation success rate. Consequently, large-scale propagation requires time, space, and an advanced irrigation system.

Despite having ~10,000 trees, MRC cannot fill requests for large shoreline restoration and mitigation projects. Since January 2026, we have received requests for 78,920 mangroves 3-gallon size or larger (3-5 years old) across the state of Florida. For MRC alone, we were unable to submit bids for six large projects due to lack of inventory. In many cases, when mangroves are not available, they are replaced by other plants that do not provide the same shoreline defense against wind, erosion, and storm surges as mangroves. Mangroves remove more nutrients than other shoreline plants with each tree removing 27 lbs of CO2, 0.061 lbs of nitrogen, and 4.41 lbs of phosphorus per year.

The solution: As MRC is already one of the largest growers of all three native species of mangroves in the US, we are proposing to expand our nursery operations with space dedicated to contract growing. This will provide the resources we need to grow up to 45,000 trees at one time for ongoing projects. Improving our facility with additional space and salt water irrigation will also allow us to increase the number of species we propagate to include other trees, shrubs, flowering plants, saltmarsh grasses, and seagrasses needed for restoration and commercial projects.

Sebastian Nursery Expansion