July 22, 2008The sun warms a patch of mangrove forest near Mexico's Espmritu Santo island last June in the Gulf of California.

The loss of mangrove forests to coastal development is threatening the region's multimillion-dollar fishing industry, according to a new study.

Around Mexico's Gulf of Californiabetween the Baja California peninsula and the west coast of the Mexican mainlandmangroves are being destroyed to make way for high-end tourism resorts, according to the report by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

Researchers found that in the Gulf of California 2.5 acres (1 hectare) of coastal mangrove support an average of U.S. $37,500 worth of commercial fish and crab species annually.

(Read the full news story.)

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