Abstract In this response to the commentary by Bunting et al., we argue that our primary objective was to address a carbon question: how global mangrove carbon stocks evolved over the past 35 years by combining multi‐decadal maps with biomass and soil carbon data sets. Our objective was neither to identify the ‘best’ mangrove distribution map for nations, nor to supersede existing mangrove distribution data sets. Instead, we emphasized the important contributions of these products, we also acknowledged the evident and widespread differences among these products due to inherent challenges. These challenges were far more pronounced in the mid‐1980s. Thus, to pioneer mangrove carbon estimation for that era, we reconstructed the 1985 distribution as a pragmatic initial approximation rather than a final authoritative standard, we have made data sets publicly available to enable specialized teams to develop more accurate and authoritative 1980s mapping, thereby advancing the assessment of long‐term mangrove dynamics and carbon stocks.