Category: PS Updates

This weekend we are in for a treat as the BBC Blue Planet team broadcast episode 5 “Green Seas” for the first time (Sunday 26th November, BBC One, 8pm – don’t miss it!). The episode will reveal amazing footage of charismatic animals such as the Weedy Sea Dragon, the Green Sea Turtle and the Tiger Shark. These are just a few of the enigmatic species we associate with seagrass meadows, and all of these species are showcased in this episode! It’s now been over a year since we hosted the 12th International Seagrass Biology Workshop in Wales and it got me thinking about how far we’ve come with raising the profile of seagrass meadows… but just how far we’ve yet to go… and what we should be the ‘take home’ messages we are aiming to communicate ahead of the 13th International Seagrass Biology Workshop in Singapore next year? I love to read the new science which seems to be being generated almost weekly at the moment by #TeamSeagrass! Personally, I am back in a secondary school classroom these days, and so don’t have the time I used too, but if I had the capacity to go, I would certainly have been at CERF 2017 this month which is took place in Providence, Rhode Island. From my perspective both CERF 2015 in Portland, Oregon and CERF 2013 in San Diego, California were excellent conferences. They were particularly good for catching up with colleagues from around the world and getting a sneak peek into seagrass science coming hot off the press. If you are not already, I’d get following @CERFScience on Twitter ahead of CERF 2019 in Mobile, Alabama. This month we also witnessed the big UN Climate Change Conference “COP23” in Bonn, Germany. This conference marks the next step for governments to implement the Paris Climate Change Agreement and accelerate the transformation to sustainable, resilient and climate-safe development. The Climate Conference was reported as a ‘Launch-pad for higher ambition’ but as with all international agreements, it’s a case of walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Finally, next Monday I’ll be attending The World Forum on Natural Capital hosted by the Scottish Wildlife Trust in Edinburgh. Early this year I wrote a guest blog for the trust which explains the importance of seagrass habitat, and how people can help by submitting records through Seagrass Spotter. I also wrote another guest blog for ScotLINK which focussed on the value of seagrass meadows as Natural Capital. All this activity has got me thinking once again about how we best communicate seagrass meadows. At Project Seagrass we’ve tried a variety of educational tools, including colouring in books, nursery rhymes, school workshops and videos to name just a few. However, as I’m now back in the classroom and teaching young biology students (11-18 years old), I have had to re-evaluate some of the language I’ve got accustomed to using on a day to day basis, especially amongst my academic colleagues. I’m essentially stripping seagrass science back to the VERY basics. For several years now my ‘elevator pitch’ for seagrass has been based around 3 topics; 1) Fisheries and Food Security (seagrass meadows are a nursery habitat for many important food fish species) 2) Blue Carbon (seagrass meadows are a mega carbon sink) 3) Green Barriers (seagrass meadows protect our coastlines from wave energy). But how do you pitch that to an 11-year-old? And is that what I should be focussing on? Learning to communicate seagrass science at every level is something that we should all aim to improve in, but I also think it’s especially important for us to all be ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’. If the first challenge was in getting seagrass as a ‘thing’ into the public consciousness, the next step is surely explaining why it is so damn important! Learning to communicate these three concepts is my current seagrass science communication challenge and so if anyone has got any ideas or resources to help with this, then I’m all ears! Cheers RJ

Last weekend on July 22nd, Ullapool Rotary Club put on yet another wonderful “Round The Pier Day” and Project Seagrass were invited by the Scottish Wildlife Trusts, who, thanks to Ullapool Harbour Trust and staff, have been featuring a ‘Wildlife Marquee’ as be part of the day. We were thus able to join Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust (HWDT), Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), Marine Conservation Society (MCSUK), RSPB Scotland and Capturing our Coast in the Wildlife Marquee. It was a super day with 1728 visitors coming onto the Pier to enjoy the festivities throughout the day! In Scotland Project Seagrass have been working alongside Scottish Wildlife Trusts to raise awareness of Eelgrass (Zostera marina) which is one of the trusts ‘priority species’. In April 2016 it was hoped that our move to Scotland would herald ‘A New Dawn For Scottish Seagrass’ and we spoke then of our ambition to engage with Scotland’s coastal communities and begin the much needed process of mapping Scotland’s seagrass meadows. Community events such as this are the ‘bread and butter’ of that vision. They are also some of the best craic you can have! Our ambition for ‘Seagrass meadows to be saved around Scottish coasts’ has to start with people, and raising awareness of this most productive of coastal ecosystems. Having the opportunity to talk with folk about what seagrass is, where it is found and how we can map it is central to our strategy of raising awareness amongst the public. The Scottish Wildlife Trusts ‘Wildlife Marquee’ was a fantastic platform for engaging with people both from the local community, and those visiting the area. On a personal note it was brilliant to see the ‘Have You Got The Bottle?’ campaign present in the tent. The organisation is campaigning for a Scottish Deposit Return System for drinks packaging (Basically you would pay a small deposit when you buy cans and bottles and get it back when they are returned. Easy.) As someone who wants to reduce litter entering our marine ecosystems then this seems to me like a super solution to a huge problem! Anyways, back to the seagrass! When we arrived in Scotland we wanted develop and network of like minded individuals who could help volunteer their time and energy towards our common goal. This is the Scottish Seagrass Network. This weekend SJ (of the “ThreeBeforeThirty” blog posts) and Lauren (our West of Scotland rep) joined me in Ullapool to help deliver the SEA education (Seagrass, Education and Awareness) on the Saturday and explore the Marine Protected Area on the Sunday. By land and by sea the Wester Ross Marine Protected Area is simply stunning!  First, we explored Loch Broom and the Summer Isles (towards the North-East of the MPA) and then afterwards Little Loch Broom, Gruinard Bay and Loch Ewe (towards the centre and South-West of the MPA). In Gruinard Bay there is a known seagrass meadow which forms part of the Scottish Wildlife Trusts North-West Highlands Snorkel Trail which has nine sites along the north west highlands coast around Ullapool, and recently a further six sites on the Isle of Harris. The Summer Isles are home to seals, seabirds and the majestic White-tailed eagle.  If anyone is interested in assisting Project Seagrass in mapping the extent of seagrass distribution around these trails then please upload your photos via our Seagrass Spotter app and if you would like to find out more information about Scotland’s Seagrass Meadows then check out the Scottish Wildlife Trusts website. Slàinte RJ

So that’s 4 years, 1460 days, 35,040 hours, 2,120,400 minutes or 12,614,400 seconds of seagrass! 2016/2017 has been our biggest 12 months to date, with our hosting of the 12th International Seagrass Biology Workshop at Nant Gwrtheyrn the obvious highlight. But that’s not all we’ve been up to this year. Since our ‘3 years of Project Seagrass’ blog last July, we’ve enjoyed making marine science matter at IMCC4 last August, right up to outreach at Ullapool Pier Day (blog to follow) just this last week. This blog is thus a celebration, and a review, of our 4th year as an officially seagrass focused entity! 2016 August So first up, and in a break from our usual seagrass focus, myself and Edd Hind-Ozan were involved in an innovative project with “Oceans Online” at IMCC4. The idea was to run a workshop which focussed on “Bringing fishermen to the table” at academic conferences. The aim was to achieve this using live stream “Bambuser” technology. Whilst this is a simple concept, I believe it is one that is long overdue. At marine conservation focused conferences and workshops, the importance of stakeholders is discussed frequently, whether it’s from developing solutions for community led MPA’s or improving fishing quotas – but the stakeholders are all to frequently absent from these high-level discussions. Oceans Online marked a pretty important development in making conferences accessible to all, especially considering a lot of commercial fishermen (from both developed and developing countries) cannot attend conferences because they are fishing! It was a privilege to be part of the beginning of a movement that looks to cultivate the ways marine science is conducted, shared and communicated online. Oceans Online will be returning on the 29th June 2018 for IMCC5 in Malaysia – so save the date! Next up in August was the development of Scottish Seagrass Network and the official registration of Project Seagrass as a charitable entity in Scotland. As we entered our fourth year as an NGO, we thought this was a logical step for us, especially since within north-west Europe, approximately 20% of seagrass meadows are found within Scottish waters. Within north-west Europe roughly 1/5th of seagrass meadows are found in Scottish waters.  September In September myself and SJ managed to get over to the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) in Oban for some ‘Seagrass Spotter’ citizen science. The site we went seagrass spotting was Dunstaffnage Bay at the entrance to Loch Etive on the West Coast of Scotland. Beyond the eelgrass meadow already known to SAMS there was not much to report. Meanwhile, in Swansea, Wales the team from HQ in Cardiff were busy running a Seagrass Education and Awareness stand at the British Science Festival. The festival’s began in 1831 in York, England and have run through to this festival in Swansea which marked the 177th meeting of the British Science Association. Project Seagrass at the British Science Festival in Swansea, Wales.  October This month was clearly ‘the big one’ in our calendar, and what a brilliant event the 12th International Seagrass Biology Workshop turned out to be. Our intern Evelyn Furness remarked on just how friendly “Team Seagrass” turned out to be and I think all delegates were impressed at both the diversity and quality of seagrass science that is now taking place globally. I’m sure that ISBW13 in Singapore will be an absolute cracker of a conference! The 12th International Seagrass Biology Workshop was held at Nant Gwrtheyrn, Wales. November  You’d be forgiven for thinking that November would be a prime opportunity to take our foot off the gas after the efforts that went into hosting ISBW12, but conversely, we were really keen to build on the momentum and enthusiasm generated at ISBW12, especially the passion shown for our smartphone app Seagrass Spotter. For this reason, we put all our efforts this month into ensuring that Seagrass Spotter was developed and enhanced from being a smartphone application that was only available in the British Isles, to one that was functional across Europe, and in particular, that it be made accessible to as many delegates as possible from across the Mediterranean region. Seagrass spotter was made available to users in the Mediterranean Sea  November was also the month that SJ announced she would be running “Three marathons before I turn 30” in a bid to raise vital funds for Project Seagrass. December  Building on our traditional Christmas advent calendar, this year we created a “virtual” calendar for you all to enjoy. Behind each door of our calendar is one of #SantasSeagrassSecrets introducing you to the weird and wonderful uses and functions of seagrasses across the world. 2017 January The new year started with a reason to celebrate! Participation in SeagrassSpotter had rocketed since its expansion and we now had over 400 seagrass sightings from across the North Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea! What’s more, we had the good news that Andrew Lewin was keen to support Team Seagrass on his Speak Up For Blue website, with each of the plenaries from ISBW12 to be shared from his website. The first of these was Ocean Optimism on the Future of Seagrass Meadows on January 3rd but he continued to share one plenary / blog combo through until March (Check them out at www.speakupforblue.com). Each January I also take the time to head down to the BETT show as I seek inspiration for the best ways for us to improve on our SEA (Seagrass, Education and Awareness) programme. Towards the end of the month, Ben attended a meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, to discuss the final developments to “The Dugong & Seagrass Research Toolkit”, which we’ll discuss later. Richard headed to Puerto Rico, where he led the Swansea University Tropical Marine Ecology field course. Here he used the opportunity to test the capabilities of Seagrass Spotter in a tropical environment and paved the way for scientific seagrass spotting by conducting the activity along transects. February In February we were out and about in Cardiff talking all things seagrass at Cardiff University’s “Speak Week” March  March is Seagrass Awareness Month and so a busy time of year for anyone involved in seagrass science and communication! This month Ben headed to Mexico as part of a ‘Land 2 Coast’ project with Cardiff University. Here