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Benjamin Jones

Benjamin Jones
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AwarenessEducation
March 25, 2016

Seagrass Provides Easter Eggcitement

Seagrass meadows provide a suitable environment for eggstraordinary creatures to lay and secure their weird and wonderful eggs. As its Easter, we thought it would be a nice opportunity to introduce you to eggs that can be found in seagrass meadows around our coast. Cuttlefish eggs or "sea grapes" attached to blades of Zostera marina (Photo: Michiel Vos | www.anbollenessor.wordpress.com) The charismatic cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, is a common visitor to seagrass meadows around the British Isles. Each spring, cuttlefish migrate inshore to shallow bays and estuaries to mate, where the females their eggs. The small black eggs are usually set in bunches,…
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Benjamin Jones
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EducationProjectsPS Updates
March 17, 2016

Reflecting on the #PeoplesProjects: We’ll continue to push for “Mission SEA”

Back in 2015 we entered the #PeoplesProjects, a competition held by the Big Lottery Fund and ITV to win up to £50,000 of National Lottery money. The Peoples Projects aimed to give organisations the chance to build upon previous projects they had completed with help from the Awards For All funding scheme. At the time we didn’t even expect to make it past the first round, but you’ve got to be in it to win it, right? We thought long and hard about how Project Seagrass could make a difference to peoples lives. Although as an organisation we’re devoted to conserving seagrass ecosystems, it’s a well known…
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Benjamin Jones
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Issues
March 7, 2016

International Women’s Day – “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality” #pledgeforparity

Today, the 8th March 2016, is International Women’s Day. The UN’s International Woman’s Day theme for 2016 is "Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality"; in addition, an independent campaign, separate from the UN, is being run by financial firm EY (with other corporate partners) which is organising events around a #PledgeForParity hashtag. Today is of course a day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievement of women. Yet it is also a day to raise awareness of the need to urgently address gender inequalities, and take action to accelerate gender parity. In 2014, the…
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Benjamin Jones
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IssuesProjectsResearch
February 21, 2016

A Glimmer of Hope for Seagrass in the Wakatobi National Park?

Back in December 2015 I spent a couple of weeks in the Wakatobi, Indonesia, initiating phase II of the Wakatobi Seagrass Program. This seeks to build on work carried out though a previous project “Recognising the role of seagrass meadows in food security: re-prioritising the marine conservation agenda” (2011-2014), which was conducted in the same location. That project evidenced the direct economic value and food security potential of seagrass meadows and prompted local government and community stakeholders to place seagrass on their conservation agendas for the first time. The Wakatobi project demonstrated how seagrass associated species provide an essential source…
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Benjamin Jones
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PS Updates
January 11, 2016

New Year New Challenges: 2015’s highlights and what’s in store for 2016

We’d like to start 2016 by saying a big thank you to everyone that’s been with Project Seagrass for its 3rd year, which has without a doubt been our most successful yet. From urging the government to consider important UK seagrass areas to receiving charity status; from kicking off monitoring at our first long term SeagrassWatch site to starting the first ever seagrass restoration trial in Wales, its been quite a exciting year. We’re very proud to be helping the fight to protect our seagrass for the future. However, none of this would be possible without your support, our partners…
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Benjamin Jones
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IssuesProjectsResearch
December 8, 2015

Restoring our Damaged Seagrass Meadows

When you think about areas requiring bold initiatives to protect the environment, the small Welsh costal village of Porthdinllaen might not be the first place that comes to mind, and with only two dozen buildings and a miniscule population you might find it surprising that the environment there is under threat. Porthdinllaen is a part of a marine conservation area called Pen Llŷn a’r Sarnau Special Area of Conservation (SAC) which extends from Nefyn, on the north coast of the Llŷn, to Clarach, about a mile north of Aberystwyth. The presence of seagrass within the SAC is one of the…
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Benjamin Jones
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EducationProjectsResearch
October 12, 2015

Learning to protect seagrass in the heart of the Coral triangle.

Indonesia is at the heart of the Coral Triangle, an area characterised by having the World’s highest marine biodiversity. With over 17000 islands, 51,00km2 of coral reef and at least 30000 km2 of seagrass its marine life is extensive and spectacular. But with a growing population, rapidly expanding GDP, and its status as the world’s 2nd biggest fisheries producer, the marine ecosystems of Indonesia are under increasing threat. These threats are not just critical for the economy but also for the maintenance of food security of the nation’s 250 million people. This is why we’re working on a project to…
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Benjamin Jones
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IssuesProjectsResearch
September 30, 2015

Puttalam Lagoon – Paradise Lost?

At the end of August I spent 10 days conducting fieldwork in Pattalam Lagoon, which is situated in the north west of Sri Lanka. The purpose of my visit to Puttalam Lagoon was to set up socio-economic and fish landings surveys with a research collaborator, who will now complete the surveys. This research was undertaken to contribute to a growing database covering South East Asia and beyond, linking seagrass meadows and food security, by using Sri Lanka as a case study. The lagoon was fringed with seagrass meadows and populated by many dense mangrove islands. Before the trip, I had…
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