Ecosystem service provided by mangroves has many dimensions. To the consumer, it encompasses timber, fuel wood, fodder, fishes, honey, wax etc. which can be purchased. To the economist, it is the key fuel for coastal prosperity. To the environmentalist, it acts as a reservoir of GHGs like carbon and nitrogen and a coast guard against natural disasters. To the local inhabitants, mangrove ecosystem is the source of their livelihood, economic and food security. However, I believe that there is a retirement age of all these services as most of the services offered by mangrove ecosystem in the form of fishes, honey, timber, fuel, wax etc. have a shelf life of their own. The shelf life can be stretched through regulatory policies, long term planning and balanced research work. The entire spectrum of ecosystem services of mangroves is still untapped due to contradictory approaches and lack of implementing the fruits of cutting edge researches into policy domain. Today, environmentalists oppose expansion of tourism units and shrimp farms in the mangroves, but it is to be noted that these are also the sources livelihoods to millions of coastal inhabitants and island dwellers. If these activities are banned, there will be more illegal intrusion into the forests and exploitation of natural resources. The end results will be negative. If instead, some Combined Biological Treatment Plant (CBTP) can be implemented, I think it would be a sustainable foot step to conserve the natural resources as well as livelihood generation through tourism and shrimp farm based activities. However, there is hardly any focus in this direction at the policy level, and I am sure that even after reading this preface, it may be a show piece in the book shelf.