Essential Ecosystem Area (EEA) policy was emerged in Indonesia to provide justifications and legal basis for a more sustained and equitable management of ecologically important ecosystems outside Nature Reserve Areas and/or Nature Conservation Areas. Despite the fact that 1.4 million hectares of mangrove located outside of formal protected areas in Indonesia, and the increasing interests in creating EEAs, studies on the management of Mangrove EEAs remain limited. Mangroves in Pangpang Bay area, East Java, is the only mangrove ecosystem left on the East Coast of East Java with an area about 1600 hectares enacted as EEA in 2011. This article discusses the management strategy of Pangpang Bay EEA for the last 9 years and estimates the direct economic value generated from the strategy implementation. The generic strategy in the Pangpang Bay EEA is comanagement with the creation of Management Forum for Pangpang Bay Ecosystem Area in 2011 as the bridging organization. One of the main traits of comanagement is a clear property right. This has not been materialized at the study site as there is currently no legal agreement on the limitation of extraction or harvest of natural resources. However, the government perceived that the extraction rate is sustainable due to the traditional extraction method. They also perceived that EEA establishment has enabled the local community to build local businesses which depend on healthy mangroves ecosystem such as the ecotourism, fishing tour, crab culture, etc. As a result, this reduced illegal logging activities. The total direct use value generated by Wringinputih village community related to mangrove ecosystem management is about IDR. 4,338,216,000 (USD 337,554) per month. Essential Ecosystem Areas policy with comanangement strategies provides a promising alternative to sustainable use of natural resources in mangrove ecosystem in Indonesia. The results of this study will contribute to the scholarship of Mangrove EEAs management in Indonesia as the alternative ‘savior’ for Indonesia’s natural resources.