UK's lost sea meadows to be resurrected in climate fight

[FfFfFfFF 58,068]

The underwater meadow is long gone though, a victim of past pollution and shipping. So from a boat half a mile from shore, Furness is feeding a long rope into the water, which carries a little hessian bag of seagrass seeds every metre.

The Seagrass Ocean Rescue project will ultimately place 20km of rope and a million seeds on the shallow seafloor, where they will sprout through the bags and restore the habitat.

Seagrass meadows were once common around the UK coast, but more than 90% have been lost as a result of algae-boosting pollution, anchor damage and port and marina building. The meadows, however, store carbon 35 times faster than tropical rainforests and harbour up to 40 times more marine life than seabeds without grass, facts that are driving the effort to bring them back.

“We face a growing climate emergency and a biodiversity emergency, and we have to make rapid steps to fight those,” says Richard Unsworth at Swansea University and lead biologist on the £400,000 project, which is supported by WWF and Sky Ocean Rescue.

Seagrass covers just 0.2% of the ocean but provides an estimated 10% of its carbon storage. It is in trouble around the world, and Unsworth hopes the first project of its kind in the UK may help boost take-up of this nature-based solution to the climate crisis.

Seagrass can grow up to 1 metre long. Its flowers are pollinated by shrimps and other creatures, as well as water currents. The seeds are like small pine nuts and many have been placed in their growbags by volunteer schoolchildren. The first green shoots should appear by October.

 The project is the culmination of eight years of laboratory and sea trials and extensive discussions with the local community. “This is perfect habitat, really sheltered, and it’s all coming together here,” he says.

The seeds were collected over 300 hours of diving at the few remaining seagrass meadows at theLlŷn peninsula in north Wales and on the coasts of Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. 

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/10/uk-lost-sea-meadows-to-be-resurrected-in-climate-emergency-fight

[Seeka 12,372]

this looks professional. I am shooketh.

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

Everything old is new again 

From 80s music to ancient ecosystems 

[gumzy3000 7,898]

I love when governments/communities/organizations do these things but the effects of global warming are world wide so even if the UK does this, the polluters will keep on polluting and the whole world will be affected.