Solent Seagrass Update – A Year in Review

Category: Blogs, Projects

December 19, 2024

Seagrass Restoration

Efforts to restore seagrass marine habitat at our two restoration sites on the Isle of Wight began in March and April this year under the Solent Seascape Project.

A total of 132,000 seeds and 2,160 transplants have been planted across the two sites. There are plans to continue this planting in spring 2025 using the same methods.

Continued monitoring of the restoration sites and WWF seagrass planting trials are undertaken during fieldwork on a monthly basis.

Summer Seagrass Seed Harvest

During July, we collected seagrass seeds (Zostera marina) from three meadows around the Isle of Wight. We were joined by 117 volunteers and some of our funders and project partners as part of our seagrass seed harvesting wade and pick event.

We collectively harvested 101, 710 seeds in total, which will contribute towards 2025’s restoration efforts.

Seagrass Safe Sailor

We’ve been working with the boating community on the island to explore Advanced Mooring Systems (AMS), and promote seagrass safe sailing practices.

Two AMS have been designed and are in the final stages of being installed at Seaview. These AMS provide a demonstration of how AMS can work safely
in a challenging tidal environment with moving sediment and currents, whilst reducing scarring on the extensive seagrass meadow here.

In 2025, we’ll be monitoring seagrass recovery at Seaview, and working with local stakeholders to map the seagrass meadow.

You can explore our Seagrass Safe Sailor resources here.

Fragment Walks

This year we, and many volunteers have also been restoring seagrass through fragments (washed up seagrass). We have:

Set up two fragment collection points at St Helen’s and Arc Biodiversity in Sandown
Run eight fragment collection walks
Planted 329 plants over 17m²
Run two school-focused fragment collection walks
Worked with over 200 volunteers.

To find out more about our Fragment Walk initiative visit our blog article.