[2][3][4] The New Guinea mangroves cover an area of 26,800 square kilometers (10,300 sq mi), particularly among the river mouths of the island's south coast.

Bintuni Bay in western New Guinea, which lies between the Bird's Head and Bomberai peninsulas, contains the largest continuous area of mangroves in Indonesia, and is second only to the Sundarbans of India and Bangladesh.

The seedling may finally reach a point of its destination where conditions are favorable, and the roots will begin to bury into the ground, forming a new mangrove tree.

Their complex root networks encourage further sedimentation and growth which then creates shade that allows Rhizophora mucronata to establish itself, ultimately supplanting the shade-intolerant Avicennia and Sonneratia.

Where freshwater flows create a less salty brackish environment the mangrove palm Nypa fruticans is common, together with Xylocarpus granatum and Heritiera littoralis.

[11] These continuously changing woodlands do not have a great variety of mammals, although the greater sheath-tailed bat (Emballonura furax) is a near-endemic.

Many species of birds also inhabit these forests including the New Guinea flightless rail, while endemic or near-endemic birds include the red-billed brush-turkey, Wallace's fruit-dove, western crowned pigeon, Salvadori's fig parrot, black lory, brown lory, Papuan swiftlet, red-breasted paradise-kingfisher, white-bellied pitohui, and the olive-crowned flowerpecker.

Many global changes such as an increased rise in sea water is largely thought to be responsible for the destruction of these mangrove forests.

[16] Threats to mangroves in Bintuni Bay and on Daru and Bobo (Bristow) Islands, Western Province, PNG, includes cutting for firewood and charcoal burning.

Cutters travel by canoe up creeks into the interior of the mangrove forest and clear-fell large areas of trees which from the outside appear untouched.

The timber is sold in the market on Daru, an island which is home to 10% of the Western Province population i.e. some 15,000 people including immigrants from Indonesian New Guinea (Papua).