Eden has teamed up with Natural England to raise awareness of the importance of seagrass and inspire action to help protect and conserve it.


Until recently, seagrass has been one of nature’s unsung heroes in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss – but it’s under threat. Seagrass is found off the coast


of every continent except Antarctica. Different species thrive in different climates, but all need relatively calm, clear and shallow waters where enough light can reach the leaves and the roots can be established undisturbed on the seabed.


Underwater, seagrass could easily


be mistaken for seaweed, and when it washes up on the shore it looks a lot like grass. Not only is it neither seaweed nor technically a true grass, but it’s also the only flowering plant in the world that lives in the sea. It’s a marine plant with roots, flowers, pollen and seeds, just like a land plant. That’s because after plants left the oceans to colonise land some 500 million years ago, this grass ended up back in the sea around 400 million years later.


Seagrass meadows provide shelter,


food and nurseries for thousands of species worldwide, including 20% of fishery species, which helps to sustain stocks for food security and the fishing industry. In the UK, they are home to cuttlefish, sea hares, common spider crabs, snakelocks anemones, compass jellyfish, pipefish and small-spotted cat sharks. They are also important for healthy sea bass, plaice, pollock, mackerel and scallop populations. When seagrass is threatened, many of these other species are threatened too. In Cornwall, not far from Eden,


there’s loads of it. A recent Blue Carbon Mapping Project led by Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Natural England discovered that St Austell Bay is home to a huge 359-hectare (887-acre) meadow – the largest known seagrass bed in Cornwall and one of the biggest in the UK. The volunteer diver network Seasearch identified 56 species of plants and animals in St Austell Bay’s seagrass, including the rare short-snouted seahorse, as well as crustaceans, molluscs, sea squirts, worms, seaweed, fish, jellyfish, starfish and seaweed – a clear example of how it supports an abundance of life. Seagrass may have been around


since the age of the dinosaurs, but it’s been in severe decline over the past century. In the UK, we’ve lost almost 40% over the past 40 years, and it’s still declining.


15% of seagrass species are currently classified as threatened.


It’s quite clear what’s destroying it: pollution from sewage and farm run-off and physical damage by boat anchors, moorings and trawlers that rip the seagrass off the seabed, leaving stark bald patches in their wake. To a lesser but still significant extent, walkers, swimmers and snorkellers also inadvertently damage seagrass, while on a global scale, marine heatwaves linked to climate change are proving fatal. This doesn’t just threaten the marine life that depends on it – seagrass beds are significant blue (ocean) carbon stores. They play an important role in climate stabilisation, with some species able to capture carbon up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests.


The good news is that as far as methods of nature restoration go, replanting seagrass is proving achievable and effective, and several UK projects are currently underway. Research has shown that the decline of some seagrass species in Europe is slowing thanks to conservation work and water quality improvements. These small successes help motivate Natural England’s marine conservation project, ReMEDIES. ReMEDIES (Reducing and Mitigating


Erosion and Disturbance Impacts affEcting the Seabed) is a £2.5 million, five-year marine conservation project aiming to increase the area of seagrass meadows in five marine protected areas along England’s south coast. A host of enthusiastic volunteers have been working with the team to collect seeds from existing seagrass beds,


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Not a seaweed ot a se


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