Partnership is key to restoring shark bay seagrass
Gathaagudu/Shark Bay is located on Malgana (pronounced Mal-guh-nuh) Country. It’s a place of great natural beauty and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The landscape is a stunning array of colors as the desert meets the ocean. Below the sea’s surface, 4,000 square kilometers of seagrass meadows sway. That’s equivalent to 226 AFL footy fields. The Shark Bay Heritage Area is home to 12 of the world’s 72 seagrass species. Unfortunately, more than a quarter of the seagrass died during the 2010/11 marine heat wave. To restore the seagrass, a deep knowledge of the area and its plants are needed as well as scientific tools for genetic testing. Malgana mob brought their knowledge and UWA researchers brought their tools. Together, they’re bringing the wirriya jalyanu back to life. A deep connection Malgana people have a 30,000-year connection with Gathaagudu. They have a deep knowledge of Country and are passionate about looking after the area. Aunty Pat is a Malgana Gantharri/Elder. She says Gathaagudu is paradise. “If we look after Country, Country will look after us,” says Aunty Pat. Malgana people had known Sea Country was changing for a long time. “The fishermen knew it,” says Aunty Pat. “Fishermen know Sea Country better than anyone. You talk to any of those fishermen and they will tell you stories about the changes in biology and the marine environment.” UNESCO only recognizes Gathaagudu as an important ecological site, not a cultural site. “We’re trying to [get] our cultural values listed alongside our natural values,” says Aunty Pat. “They’re of equal importance.” These cultural values and knowledge are key to the wirriya jalyanu restoration to provide a broader historical context of Sea Country in Gathaagudu. Teamwork Dr. Elizabeth Sinclair is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at UWA. She worked with Aunty Pat and Malgana Traditional Owners to restore the seagrass. Sinclair says researchers have been working on the seagrass for around 15 years. Seagrass grows extremely well in Gathaagudu because the bay area is very shallow, has a sandy bottom and has no big ocean swells. The main seagrass disturbance is dugongs feeding on it. When seagrass is gone, the sandy floor is left exposed to tides. The sand shifts a lot, making the water cloudy. With sand constantly moving, it’s difficult for new plants to grow. This creates a system that’s hard to reverse. “By the time the heat wave came along and in the following years, it was clear that parts of the seagrass meadow were not going to recover naturally and they needed a bit of help,” says Sinclair. Sinclair and the research team looked at genetic markers in the seagrass DNA to understand how the population was structured and how to best restore it. Dugong in a seagrass meadow. Credit: via SeagrassWatch Distribution There are two large species of seagrass that grow on Gathaagudu Sea Country: ribbon weed and wire weed. These plants can grow up to 2 meters tall, creating an underwater forest and crucial habitat for marine life. Growing different types of seagrass requires different strategies. Ribbon weed grows like lawn, with new shoots emerging from the sand. “If you stick your head underwater, all you see is the green shoots,” says Sinclair. “You don’t see [a] massive network of roots.” In Gathaagudu, most of the ribbon weed is one giant clone that is 180 kilometers long. That’s longer than the drive from Perth to Bunbury. It’s the largest known plant on Earth. Knowing how the seagrass is genetically connected informs how the team approaches restoring the meadow. Wire weed grows entire seedlings that break off and float around until they land in the sand. This distribution strategy means wire weed has much more genetic diversity spread further around the bay. “We have the genetics to understand how the plants are related and then we use that information to figure out which plants to collect and where to grow them,” says Sinclair. Underwater gardening The Malgana rangers were heavily involved in the restoration process. “Rangers collected a lot of the restoration material because some now have dive tickets,” says Sinclair. “If you’re working in really shallow water, you can do it on a snorkel, but it’s much easier to do it on scuba.” To collect ribbon weed, rangers would take 10–15cm cuttings. These could be replanted and held in place with a U-shaped piece of wire for about 6 months until they grew new roots. For the wire weed restoration, the team collected seedlings and replanted them at a new location. Instead of being secured with wire, they would hang onto snaggers, a “sand-filled sausage” with a hessian coating. The hessian provided an anchor for the wire weed seedlings to attach to. Aunty Pat says the rangers loved working with the research team because it was a meaningful way to care for Country. “They couldn’t get enough of it,” says Aunty Pat. “To be working in a trial like that, they learned so much. They were happy to be doing something that was meaningful.” Ribbon weed meadow. Credit: Rachel Austin via UWA ‘Medicine for us’ Opportunities for Malgana people to return to Country are few and far between. They can’t participate on a regular basis because of a housing shortage at Gathaagudu. “The Malgana Aboriginal Corporation currently have several rangers in the program, unfortunately everyone has to rely on staying with family or friends who live in Gathaagudu because there isn’t enough accommodation due to the housing crisis,” says Aunty Pat. These types of partnerships enable Malgana people to work on Country and the younger generation the chance to reconnect to the land. “It helps them with their healing [and] their cultural and personal identity,” says Aunty Pat. Restoration team filling seagrass ‘snaggers.’ Credit: Gary Kendrick, UWA Shared knowledge “Shared knowledge leads to an improved understanding of our environment,” says Sinclair. “As Western researchers, we come in, look at a site and focus on one little thing … We have fairly narrowly focused research areas. When you start talking with Traditional Owners,
Welsh NGO and Coldplay hopeful that new competition inspires creativity to save the world’s seagrass
Project Seagrass, the world’s leading conservation organisation for seagrass meadows, has collaborated with Coldplay to launch an exclusive competition offering fans the chance to win tickets to see the band live in concert! As part of Project Seagrass’ ongoing mission to be a global voice for seagrass, and raise awareness of the critical role that seagrass meadows play for our planet, the competition encourages participants to create inspiring, impactful, and creative designs advocating for and communicating the science and importance of seagrass. Full details on the themes of the competition can be found on the Project Seagrass website, but Project Seagrass is hopeful that 100’s of creatives will take part. Seagrass meadows are vital for the health of our planet, but until relatively recently faced a charisma problem. “Global awareness of the importance of seagrass is one of the greatest challenges facing its conservation” said Dr Benjamin Jones, Project Seagrass’s Chief Conservation Officer. Often termed the “ugly duckling” of marine conservation, global advocacy for conserving seagrass has been hindered by assumptions that they aren’t as vibrant as other ocean habitats. With awareness of their importance for a wide variety of animals, from the tiniest of invertebrates, to the world’s largest herbivorous marine mammal, opinion is now changing. “Globally, the undersea meadows that seagrasses create are vital for biodiversity, stabilising our coastlines, absorbing carbon, and alleviating poverty in fishing communities dependent on them” said Dr Jones. However, seagrass meadows are under threat. Seagrass loss, primarily driven by land-use change, poor water quality, and human activity, is globally widespread. By participating in the competition, entrants are not only entering for the chance to see Coldplay live but also showing their support for marine conservation efforts. Competition Deadline: The competition will be open for entries until Sunday 16th February. The winners will be chosen by a panel of judges from Project Seagrass, Coldplay’s Management Team and an independent judge, award winning author and artist Janina Rossiter. The lucky winners will have the opportunity to see Coldplay live at Wembley Stadium in London in summer 2025! Project Seagrass invites everyone to take part in this exciting opportunity to combine creativity and environmental advocacy. For details about the competition, full terms and conditions, and to enter the competition, visit https://www.projectseagrass.org/coldplay-ticket-competition/ Photo Credit: Anna Lee