Year FOUR of Project Seagrass!
So that’s 4 years, 1460 days, 35,040 hours, 2,120,400 minutes or 12,614,400 seconds of seagrass! 2016/2017 has been our biggest 12 months to date, with our hosting of the 12th International Seagrass Biology Workshop at Nant Gwrtheyrn the obvious highlight. But that’s not all we’ve been up to this year. Since our ‘3 years of Project Seagrass’ blog last July, we’ve enjoyed making marine science matter at IMCC4 last August, right up to outreach at Ullapool Pier Day (blog to follow) just this last week. This blog is thus a celebration, and a review, of our 4th year as an officially seagrass focused entity! 2016 August So first up, and in a break from our usual seagrass focus, myself and Edd Hind-Ozan were involved in an innovative project with “Oceans Online” at IMCC4. The idea was to run a workshop which focussed on “Bringing fishermen to the table” at academic conferences. The aim was to achieve this using live stream “Bambuser” technology. Whilst this is a simple concept, I believe it is one that is long overdue. At marine conservation focused conferences and workshops, the importance of stakeholders is discussed frequently, whether it’s from developing solutions for community led MPA’s or improving fishing quotas – but the stakeholders are all to frequently absent from these high-level discussions. Oceans Online marked a pretty important development in making conferences accessible to all, especially considering a lot of commercial fishermen (from both developed and developing countries) cannot attend conferences because they are fishing! It was a privilege to be part of the beginning of a movement that looks to cultivate the ways marine science is conducted, shared and communicated online. Oceans Online will be returning on the 29th June 2018 for IMCC5 in Malaysia – so save the date! Next up in August was the development of Scottish Seagrass Network and the official registration of Project Seagrass as a charitable entity in Scotland. As we entered our fourth year as an NGO, we thought this was a logical step for us, especially since within north-west Europe, approximately 20% of seagrass meadows are found within Scottish waters. Within north-west Europe roughly 1/5th of seagrass meadows are found in Scottish waters. September In September myself and SJ managed to get over to the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) in Oban for some ‘Seagrass Spotter’ citizen science. The site we went seagrass spotting was Dunstaffnage Bay at the entrance to Loch Etive on the West Coast of Scotland. Beyond the eelgrass meadow already known to SAMS there was not much to report. Meanwhile, in Swansea, Wales the team from HQ in Cardiff were busy running a Seagrass Education and Awareness stand at the British Science Festival. The festival’s began in 1831 in York, England and have run through to this festival in Swansea which marked the 177th meeting of the British Science Association. Project Seagrass at the British Science Festival in Swansea, Wales. October This month was clearly ‘the big one’ in our calendar, and what a brilliant event the 12th International Seagrass Biology Workshop turned out to be. Our intern Evelyn Furness remarked on just how friendly “Team Seagrass” turned out to be and I think all delegates were impressed at both the diversity and quality of seagrass science that is now taking place globally. I’m sure that ISBW13 in Singapore will be an absolute cracker of a conference! The 12th International Seagrass Biology Workshop was held at Nant Gwrtheyrn, Wales. November You’d be forgiven for thinking that November would be a prime opportunity to take our foot off the gas after the efforts that went into hosting ISBW12, but conversely, we were really keen to build on the momentum and enthusiasm generated at ISBW12, especially the passion shown for our smartphone app Seagrass Spotter. For this reason, we put all our efforts this month into ensuring that Seagrass Spotter was developed and enhanced from being a smartphone application that was only available in the British Isles, to one that was functional across Europe, and in particular, that it be made accessible to as many delegates as possible from across the Mediterranean region. Seagrass spotter was made available to users in the Mediterranean Sea November was also the month that SJ announced she would be running “Three marathons before I turn 30” in a bid to raise vital funds for Project Seagrass. December Building on our traditional Christmas advent calendar, this year we created a “virtual” calendar for you all to enjoy. Behind each door of our calendar is one of #SantasSeagrassSecrets introducing you to the weird and wonderful uses and functions of seagrasses across the world. 2017 January The new year started with a reason to celebrate! Participation in SeagrassSpotter had rocketed since its expansion and we now had over 400 seagrass sightings from across the North Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea! What’s more, we had the good news that Andrew Lewin was keen to support Team Seagrass on his Speak Up For Blue website, with each of the plenaries from ISBW12 to be shared from his website. The first of these was Ocean Optimism on the Future of Seagrass Meadows on January 3rd but he continued to share one plenary / blog combo through until March (Check them out at www.speakupforblue.com). Each January I also take the time to head down to the BETT show as I seek inspiration for the best ways for us to improve on our SEA (Seagrass, Education and Awareness) programme. Towards the end of the month, Ben attended a meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, to discuss the final developments to “The Dugong & Seagrass Research Toolkit”, which we’ll discuss later. Richard headed to Puerto Rico, where he led the Swansea University Tropical Marine Ecology field course. Here he used the opportunity to test the capabilities of Seagrass Spotter in a tropical environment and paved the way for scientific seagrass spotting by conducting the activity along transects. February In February we were out and about in Cardiff talking all things seagrass at Cardiff University’s “Speak Week” March March is Seagrass Awareness Month and so a busy time of year for anyone involved in seagrass science and communication! This month Ben headed to Mexico as part of a ‘Land 2 Coast’ project with Cardiff University. 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