Intership Reflections – An introduction to Underwater Gardening!
Hello, I am Issy, a new intern at Project Seagrass. I just wanted to share with you a quick update with what I have been involved in so far! My first day started at Porthcawl beach, with two groups of excited primary school children. Here, in small groups, marine animals were built using natural material found […]
Long Lost Seagrass & Our Spring Survey Report
During April I returned to the Llyn Peninsula, along with Project Seagrass directors RJ Lilley, Ben Jones and Richard Unsworth to conduct the Spring SeagrassWatch survey, 1/4 of the yearly seagrass monitoring survey that we’ve been conducting at Porthdinllaen for the past two years. In addition, we also checking seeds from Project ReStore and also completed an additional survey […]
A New Dawn For Scottish Seagrass
Seagrasses grow all around the coast of the UK and around our islands within the intertidal zone. Scotland plays host to the highest abundance of seagrass when compared to the rest of UK, this is due to the better water quality and also a higher number of available sheltered sites around the coast of Scotland. […]
Where is all the seagrass? Project Seagrass wants you to help!
Help us record the seagrass near you At Project Seagrass we created a conservation tool that could lead to new discoveries about one of the ocean’s most underappreciated habitats — seagrass. With our new phone app and website, Seagrass Spotter, ocean enthusiasts around the British Isles can become citizen scientists who contribute to marine conservation, with […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Starting the Seagrass and Dugong fightback
The Dugong (Dugong dugon) is IUCN Red listed as Vulnerable, in many of the 46 range states that contain Dugong its status is a lot worse. Historic hunting, loss of its seagrass habitat and the impacts of by-catch have been the primary causes of its decline. Back in 2007 the Secretariat of the Convention on Migratory […]
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 […]
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 […]