Dr Richard Unsworth, Project Seagrass and Swansea University The seas around Wales have so much potential. They offer rich biodiversity hidden within productive lush habitats such as kelp forests, salt marshes and seagrass meadows. Life in these waters can be so ingenious that it bioengineers its own environment. Out of
This Thursday 6th October, Project Seagrass will be taking part in the Running Out of Time climate relay. The relay runs from COP26 to COP27 – from Glasgow, Scotland all the way to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. It takes place over 38 days across 18 countries to carry a relay baton
The Seagrass Ecosystem Services Project is funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and runs in partnership with the climate action Paris agreement 2015. The project aims to conserve biodiversity, seagrass ecosystems and their services across 5 Indo-Pacific countries (Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Thailand). National partners (often NGOs) work
An outreach initiative to entice local ownership of the protection of seagrass meadows Seychelles is not the only country or territory where seagrass has had to play catch up with other types of coastal wetlands and other marine ecosystems. To most Seychellois, up until recently, anything plant-like which is green
“The downward trajectory of the world’s seagrass meadows must be reversed if we are to fight the planetary crisis” say leading seagrass scientists. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have recently been described as “the most important to-do list in the history of humankind”. Scientists from Project Seagrass and Swansea
Deep evolution casts a longer shadow than previously thought, scientists report in a new paper published the week of Aug. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Smithsonian scientists and colleagues looked at eelgrass communities—the foundation of many coastal marine food webs along the north Atlantic and
[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text] The Seagrass Ecosystem Services Project is funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and runs in partnership with the climate action Paris agreement 2015. The Federal Ministry
Dr Richard Unsworth, Project Seagrass and Swansea University The seas around Wales have so much potential. They offer rich biodiversity hidden within productive lush habitats such as kelp forests, salt marshes and seagrass meadows. Life in these waters can be so ingenious that it bioengineers its own environment. Out of seemingly nothing, reefs and seagrass appear that can protect our coast and filter our water. Deepwater horse mussels that bring barren depths to life. All these habitats are teaming with life. We have Mearl beds too that are like the coral reefs of the Atlantic. We have whales, we have dolphins and we can even see turtles feeding on summertime jellyfish blooms. We also have sharks and seabirds a plenty. We potentially have it all. The Celtic seas around Wales used to support the food supply and livelihoods of the people of our nation, but this is no longer the case. Scratching the surface of history and it doesn’t take much to see this glorious past that we’ve allowed to be washed away. Our industrial past of mining and heavy industry as well as our overfishing and gross mismanagement of land have left a terrible decimation. Visiting Penllyn earlier this summer I was reminded of the Three herrings, the symbol of Nefyn – Nefyn herrings used to be sold as a high value product to the wealthy in Manchester and there used to be an abundant Fishery for the now mostly extinct crayfish. But these fisheries have long since disappeared. In South Wales, 1000’s of boats going out daily into Swansea bay collected Oysters a plenty, these provided jobs, food and a way of life. And now all that is left of this abundance of sea life in Oystermouth and the Mumbles are stories and tales. Wales is left with folklore rather than food. It’s also fascinating to consider what habitats and species would have populated our South Wales coastline before we build ports, reclaimed vast swaths of the intertidal and flooded coastal embayments with barrages. These areas were prime for biodiverse habitats. Sat in a Laugharne Pub soaking up the atmosphere of Dylan Thomas you see pictures from the 1930’s of a 3m long sea monster proudly held by a group of men. This picture isn’t from Cambodia on one of Jeremy Wades ‘ Sea Monster’ series, but it’s a sturgeon caught in the Taf Estuary in what’s now the Carmarthen bay and rivers special area of conservation. Our coastal environments were once full of such diverse and abundant life that is now largely locally extinct. A short trip onto the delightful town Tenby, or as it was locally known ‘Dinbych Y Pysgod’ or ‘Fort of the fishes’ you readily see signs everywhere of historically productive fisheries that are now largely lifeless. Fishermen on the beach get excited when they catch a small plaice, and my son out fishing with his grandparents fails to even catch the odd Mackeral. Hardly the abundance that led to the development of a thriving town and furnished the wallets of the monks of Caldey. Just how did we as a nation let this decline happen. How can we possibly pass this travesty of an environment to the next generation without doing something drastic? Moving west from Tenby we find the remnants of a once vast and abundant fishing community on the shores of the Cleddau. Yes, the waters of Milford Haven were over fished, but we also allowed heavy industry, poor land management and inappropriate farming activity to destroy the very habitats that had sat there for 10’s of thousands of years and supported the fisheries. We’ve allowed this to continue with the ongoing pollution of the sea from the activities of the land. Milford Haven waterway was once home to Wales last major Mearl bed, but that gave way to the pursuit of ever bigger infrastructure for oil and gas. As we heat the waters of the Cleddau with power station outfalls and subject the area to ever-increasing nutrient loads, the delicate seagrass continues to struggle as it increasingly respires without enough energy to keep going. As catchments and coasts degrade the place becomes ever more awash with mobile sand and mud particles further damaging the environment. Divers in the 1970’s tell of clear waters at the Neyland bridge in Milford Haven at sites that would now be too plagued with sediment and are too murky to even consider for a dive. Wales, what have we done? How did this happen? Now is not the time for a blame game, we need action instead. The Welsh Government has declared a biodiversity emergency as well a climate emergency. Time is of the essence and there is much to do. We need to take significant action to enable our marine environment to once again support our communities, our livelihoods, our well-being and most of all our planetary support. Last week we saw the launch of the Welsh Government Biodiversity Deep Dive recommendations of how the nation will start to repair its depleted habitats and associated biodiversity. A key part of these recommendations are a series of urgent actions required for the marine environment. I was part of the working group of biodiversity experts tasked with creating these recommendations. It’s fantastic to see the fresh impetus for the government to take action on establishing marine protected areas and fulfil their election promise to invest in the restoration of seagrass and salt marsh. Politics aside, I was proud to be working with a minister and government who want to do the right thing, who want to actively reverse biodiversity loss and who understand the precarious environmental tight rope that we’re currently walking and the history of political promises but limited change. What we now need is action, we need the Welsh Government on the back of a terrible political climate from central government to push their prosed recommendations and agenda forward. We need the Marine Protected Area plans to move out from their covers and
This Thursday 6th October, Project Seagrass will be taking part in the Running Out of Time climate relay. The relay runs from COP26 to COP27 – from Glasgow, Scotland all the way to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. It takes place over 38 days across 18 countries to carry a relay baton containing a message from young people to the decision makers at COP27. You can read the message here. Project Seagrass are proud to be taking part in the relay across South Wales from our research facilities in Swansea to our HQ in Bridgend. We will be carrying our own letter from the pupils of the Eco Club at Coychurch Primary School. Read their letter below: Letter to Tomorrow To a school child in the future, We are writing this on behalf of Coychurch Primary School children. This is a letter about our hopes and dreams for the future. We hope that in the future, native trees in our rainforests have been replanted and that only sustainable palm oil is used in products worldwide. We want to see many of our endangered animals, bees and insects thriving to support biodiversity. When you go to the beach with your family, we hope you can play in the sand and the sea without pollution, and it is free from single-use plastics. Beach litter picks are a thing of the past! If you snorkel, you will see seagrass fields that support marine life and trap carbon to help stop climate change. We want all schools to run on renewable energy with solar panels on the roof and wind turbines in the community. At school and at home, meat-free days will happen every week, and you will eat local and Fairtrade foods. Your food waste will be composted and used to grow fruit, flowers and vegetables in your school garden. When you read this, you should not be worried about your future and climate change right now because countries, governments, communities and families have listened to our pupil’s voices, taken climate change seriously, and we have made a difference. Love from, Coychurch Primary School Wales (Written by pupils in the Eco Club) You can get involved with the climate relay here.
The Seagrass Ecosystem Services Project is funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and runs in partnership with the climate action Paris agreement 2015. The project aims to conserve biodiversity, seagrass ecosystems and their services across 5 Indo-Pacific countries (Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Thailand). National partners (often NGOs) work closely with coastal communities and technical experts to run community-led seagrass conservation work. The second of the national partners involved in The Seagrass Ecosystem Services Project that we are highlighting is MareCet Research Organisation, a non-profit NGO working within Malaysia. The organisation is dedicated to research, education and conservation of marine mammals and their fragile habitats. They were established in 2012 by a small group of conservationists with a passion for protecting marine life. MareCet aims to work with local communities and stakeholders to improve their scientific knowledge and promote ocean stewardship, enabling an alternative income opportunity with direct, consistent, and meaningful participation in conservation. They also work with conservation strategies already in place to strengthen and increase their capacity. In 2014, MareCet became involved in ‘The Seagrass Ecosystem Services Project’, at first investigating the biological, ecological and conservation needs of dugong populations around a set of islands (the Sibu-Tinggi Archipelago). This work then expanded to the dugongs associated with seagrass habitat. Their team deploy under water monitoring systems (BRUVs – Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems) to collect data on the health of the seagrass in order to inform decisions on conservation strategies. Their hard work has been recognised, in 2019 an endangered population of dugongs and their associated seagrass habitat in the Sibu-Tinggi Archipelago were recognised as an important Marine Mammals Protected Area (MMPA) by the ICUN MMPA task force. This was all down to the efforts of the community managing this area. Furthermore, the Johor dugong sanctuary has also been developed, protecting Malaysia’s largest dugong population where there is fewer than 100 individuals left. Local communities aim to set up experiences for experiencing the biodiversity first hand in a harmless way, enabling people to build stronger connections to the local environment to help promote conservation efforts. One of our team is currently out in the Indo-Pacific, providing in person technical support to MareCet. We can’t wait to hear how their projects are going and we will provide updates where we can on here and across our social medias.
An outreach initiative to entice local ownership of the protection of seagrass meadows Seychelles is not the only country or territory where seagrass has had to play catch up with other types of coastal wetlands and other marine ecosystems. To most Seychellois, up until recently, anything plant-like which is green and comes from the sea has been categorised as gomon; be it seaweed or seagrass. Formally, seagrass has not had a name or term to define it in the country’s native language, Seychellois Creole. The team behind the Coastal Wetlands and Climate Change project, whose main objective was to bring seagrass to the forefront of the climate debate in the small island state, had its work cut out in reaching out to the population (99,202 as of June 2021, National Statistics Bureau) to mobilise interest and concern over the conservation of seagrass. Unrecognised – with no name; so where do you start? It was imperative that seagrass was ‘localised’ to have people be mindful of it when they go for a swim in shallow waters or anchor their boats and jet skis along coastlines. Locally, the process for introducing new words in the Creole language entailed submitting options to the Creole Language Academy which had the responsibility of validating the selection and giving its seal of approval on the chosen words and terms. But, where would the suggestions come from? The avenue which was explored to collect names for seagrass and its five lifeforms, was similar to an alarm on snooze. Seagrass had been in the news and on social media since mid-2020, when one can argue the first alarm went off; we have seagrass, they matter, and we must protect them. Any new development in seagrass news, be it local or international, was similar to a follow-up snooze, reminding people of the initial message and adding more content and context to it. Launching the campaign to identify official Seychellois Creole terms was an exceptionally loud snooze because the project reached out to the public to contribute their ideas and suggestions. The public got the chance to re-visit all the bits of information which had been shared with them all along and engage in something fun: naming a plant! Social media, print media, the radio and emails were all used to reach out to the public to engage in a survey to select and/or suggest names. A very important segment of the public which had to be consulted was local fishermen who undisputedly have a closer connection with the ocean and all that it encompasses compared to the rest of us. Fishermen in Seychelles often come from fishing families and are familiar with terms used as reference to all forms of marine life. As it turned out, according to them, there were already existing names for seagrass; they simply had not been made official. The project team sought the help of local district administrators in identifying and locating fishermen to take part in the nation-wide survey. Those names along with others which were collected from members of the public were assessed by an Emerald Committee made up of linguists, scientists and conservationists specifically set up to prepare a short list for submission to the Academy. Zerb lanmer and Gomon zerb were the two new terms jointly selected to be added to the Seychellois language, respecting both the scientific sense of seagrass as well as incorporating its cultural significance. The words will be featured in the next edition of the Creole dictionary. To find out more about the project’s outreach activities, visit the project’s page: Resources – SeyCCAT – The Seychelles Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust Submitted by SeyCCAT
“The downward trajectory of the world’s seagrass meadows must be reversed if we are to fight the planetary crisis” say leading seagrass scientists. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have recently been described as “the most important to-do list in the history of humankind”. Scientists from Project Seagrass and Swansea University have this week published a unique review that demonstrates how this “To-Do List” of Sustainable Development Goals provides a blueprint for achieving the net recovery of seagrass ecosystems. Conserving and restoring seagrass meadows contributes to achieving 16 out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Recognising this wide role of seagrass meadows in helping achieve humanity’s ‘to-do list’ and thinking beyond their value in carbon sequestration and storage is critical to achieving the recovery of these degraded ecosystems. The call for urgent action comes after a review into the status of seagrass ecosystems and the major ecological role that they play in the coastal environment published in the leading academic journal Science and written by experts at the marine conservation charity Project Seagrass and Swansea University. Seagrass meadows are being increasingly looked to as a climate solution. However, seagrass ecosystems are sensitive to stressors and remain threatened across the globe. These degraded seagrass ecosystems are less effective at supporting biodiversity and tackling climate change. The authors state “Society needs to create meaningful pathways to net gain at local to global scales. Bold steps are needed through improved legal instruments to halt damaging factors such as bottom trawling, prevent use of damaging boating activities and to apportion responsibility for poor water quality that is causing the slow death of seagrass globally”. By recognising that seagrass meadows contribute to finding solutions to global problems such as food insecurity, water quality, wellbeing and gender equality, as well as the more well known issue such as biodiversity loss and climate change there becomes a more holistic view as to the benefits of taking large cumulative levels of action at local, regional and global scales. We need local and regional authorities to create a baseline of where seagrasses are now, where they used to be and where in the future they could be allowed to recover and be restored to get seagrass on the path to recovery. This needs to occur within the next decade if we are to fight climate change, to fight the biodiversity crisis, protect our coastlines and maintain global food security. Richard Unsworth (lead author) said “The world needs to rethink the management of our coastal environment that includes realistic compensation and mitigation schemes that not only prevent damage, but also drive the restoration, enhancement and creation of seagrass habitat. We also need a major shift in how we perceive the status of our marine environment by examining historical information, not just recent ecological baselines”. Ben Jones, a fellow author of the study added, “It is vital to work collaboratively as it is only through utilising scientific environmental studies and working as cogs in a global partnership for seagrass that meaningful change can happen”. Seagrass conservation faces substantial ecological, social and regulatory barriers and requires strong cross-sectoral partnerships to be put on the path to recovery. Identifying the solutions to seagrass conservation and restoration has never been more urgent and is critical to fight the planetary emergency. This can be achieved by using the Sustainable Development Goals as a blueprint towards recovery. Read the paper here.
Deep evolution casts a longer shadow than previously thought, scientists report in a new paper published the week of Aug. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Smithsonian scientists and colleagues looked at eelgrass communities—the foundation of many coastal marine food webs along the north Atlantic and Pacific coasts—and discovered their ancient genetic history can play a stronger role than the present-day environment in determining their size, structure and who lives in them. And this could have implications for how well eelgrasses adapt to threats like climate change. About a half-million years ago, when the world was warmer, some eelgrass plants made the difficult journey from their homes in the Pacific to the Atlantic. Not all the plants were hardy enough to make the journey across the Arctic. For those that succeeded, a series of ice ages during the Pleistocene Epoch further affected how far they could spread. Those millennia-old struggles left lasting signatures in their DNA: Even today, eelgrass populations in the Atlantic are far less genetically diverse than those in the Pacific. Still, in the classic “nature versus nurture” debate, scientists were stunned to discover that genetic legacy sometimes does more to shape modern eelgrass communities than the current environment. “We already knew that there was big genetic separation between the oceans, but I don’t think any of us ever dreamed that that would be more important than environmental conditions,” said Emmett Duffy, marine biologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and lead author of the report. “That was a big surprise to everybody.” Eelgrasses in hot water Eelgrass is among the most widespread shallow-water plants in the world. Its range spans from semi-tropical regions like Baja California all the way to Alaska and the Arctic. Besides providing food and habitat for many undersea animals, eelgrass offers a plethora of services to humans. It protects coastlines from storms, soaks up carbon and can even reduce harmful bacteria in the water. But in most places where it grows, eelgrass is the dominant—or only—seagrass species present. That makes its survival critical to the people and animals that live there. And the lower genetic diversity in the Atlantic could make it hard for some populations to adapt to sudden changes. “Diversity is like having different tools in your tool belt,” said Jay Stachowicz, a co-author and ecologist with the University of California, Davis. “And if all you’ve got is a hammer, you can put in nails, but that’s about it. But if you have a full complement of tools, each tool can be used to do different jobs more efficiently.” Ecologists have already seen eelgrass disappearing from some regions as the waters heat up. In Portugal, its southernmost spot in Europe, eelgrass has begun pulling back and moving farther north, into cooler waters. “I don’t think that we’re going to lose [eelgrass] in the sense of an extinction,” said co-author Jeanine Olsen, an emeritus professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. “It’s not going to be like that. It’s got lots of tricks up its sleeve.” But local extinctions, she pointed out, are going to occur in some places. That could leave regions that depend on their local eelgrass in trouble. Reaching a more ZEN worldview Realizing the urgent need to understand—and conserve—eelgrass worldwide, Duffy and his colleagues banded together to form a global network called ZEN, which Project Seagrass was a partner of. The name stands for Zostera Experimental Network, a nod to eelgrass’s scientific name, Zostera marina. The idea was to unite seagrass scientists all over the world, doing the same experiments and surveys, to get a coordinated global picture of seagrass health. For the new study, the team studied eelgrass communities at 50 sites in the Atlantic and Pacific. With 20 plots sampled per site, the team came away with data from 1,000 eelgrass plots. First they collected basic eelgrass data: size, shape, total biomass and the different animals and algae living on and around them. Then they collected genetic data on all the eelgrass populations. They also measured several environmental variables at each site: temperature, the water’s saltiness and nutrient availability, to name just a few. Ultimately, they hoped to discover what shaped eelgrass communities more: the environment or the genetics? After running a series of models, they discovered a host of differences between the Atlantic and Pacific eelgrass ecosystems—differences that closely aligned with the genetic divergence from the Pleistocene migration and subsequent ice ages. While Pacific eelgrasses often grew in “forests” that regularly surpassed 3 feet tall and sometimes reached more than twice that high, the Atlantic hosted more diminutive “meadows” that rarely came close to that height. The genetic differences also aligned with the total biomass of eelgrass. In the Atlantic, evolutionary genetics and the present-day environment played equally strong roles in eelgrass biomass. In the Pacific, genetics had the upper hand. These impacts flowed up to other parts of the ecosystem as well. When it came to small animals that lived in the eelgrass, like invertebrates, the genetic signature from the Pleistocene again played a stronger role than the environment in the Pacific—while the two played equally strong roles in the Atlantic. “The ancient legacy of this Pleistocene migration and bottleneck of eelgrass into the Atlantic has had consequences for the structure of the ecosystem 10,000 years later,” Duffy said. “Probably more than 10,000.” Conserving the future That ancient genetics can play such a strong role—sometimes stronger than the environment—has some ecologists concerned about whether eelgrass can adapt to more rapid changes. “Climate warming—by itself—is probably not the primary threat for eelgrass,” Olsen said. Pollution from cities and farms, which can cloud the water and lead to harmful algal blooms, also endangers seagrasses. That said, the vast array of environments eelgrass can survive in testifies to its hardiness. “I’m hopeful because our results illustrate long-term resiliency to repeated, major changes in thermal tolerances and the wide range of eelgrass habitats over about half the Northern Hemisphere,” Olsen said.
[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text] The Seagrass Ecosystem Services Project is funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and runs in partnership with the climate action Paris agreement 2015. The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) supports this initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag. The project aims to conserve biodiversity, seagrass ecosystems and their services across 5 Indo-Pacific countries (Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Thailand). National partners (often NGOs) work closely with coastal communities and technical experts to run community-led seagrass conservation work. The first of our national partners involved in ‘The Seagrass Ecosystem Services Project’ that we would like to spotlight is YAPEKA, a non-profit organisation that aims to establish community-based conservation efforts across Indonesia through the concept of ‘Learning through nature’. This involves concentrating on building community awareness and developing education programmes to help communities sustainably manage their natural resources. The main areas of focus for YAPEKA are rural areas and key biodiversity sites such as MPAs and national parks. Establishing Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs) are of high importance in rural areas that are dominated by fisheries communities, allowing them to develop their own unique coastal natural resource management. Since 2013 they have been working with local communities in North Sulawesi to raise awareness on the importance of seagrass in preserving the health and sustainability of the region’s coastal ecosystems. In 2016, they introduced dugongs as flagship species for their conservation efforts. They are using Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems (BRUVS) to record fish assemblages within seagrass meadows without being invasive. These cameras can help show what fish species thrive in seagrass meadows and thus help show the importance of these ecosystems. YAPEKA has many success stories: In the early 2000’s, the Bahoi community set up a LMMA. Twenty years later, there is now bigger fish to catch and more biodiversity. In 2019, YAPEKA won ‘best environmental civil society organisation’ in Indonesia. Also, their solid waste management project in the Gili Islands was listed in the top 20 ‘innovative ways to transform waste’ by UN-Habitat. In January 2020, the Bulutui community decided to close their traditional octopus fisheries, only opening it once every 3 months for a 7-day window to reduce pressure on the population One of our team is currently out in the Indo-Pacific, providing in person support to YAPEKA. We can’t wait to hear how their projects are going and we will provide updates where we can on here and across our social media.
