Seawilding, a community-based marine habitat restoration charity based in Scotland, has achieved a significant development in seagrass restoration, as reported by Eco Magazine.
Seagrass has been disappearing from the ocean at an unsustainable rate since the early 1900s. With this new project, the scientists can increase seabed coverage from 10% to 70% in their project areas, with an incredible 97% survival rate.
The technique uses translocated seagrass shoots instead of planting seeds, as seagrass is the ocean's only flowering plant and has been called the "lungs of the ocean" by the National Wildlife Federation, as it releases oxygen into the ocean.
The original process involved sowing seagrass seed with little success, but their new approach, launched in 2024, uses existing "donor" meadows and later transfers them to the ideal spot.
Seawilding has created an additional 0.3 hectares of seagrass since launch, bringing it to near-natural levels around the UK in just five months. This development has become one of the most successful seagrass habitat projects in the country to date.
Seagrass is a multifunctional habitat and food source, as well as an essential part of the marine food web, according to Earth.org. It's home to sea turtles and smaller organisms and works as a carbon sink, clearing pollution from the water. It's also food for fish, octopi, shrimp, and other sea creatures.
Unfortunately, seagrass meadows are already disappearing at a rate of 7% annually, the equivalent of two football fields every hour, as reported by the Frontiers Journal. These meadows are greatly affected by pollution, overfishing, and rising water temperatures, as warmer temperatures create algae blooms and the development of invasive green crabs. When seagrass is not thriving, it's an indicator for scientists that the water quality is subpar.
Alongside stories like an orca tracking project in the Pacific Northwest and a proposed national ocean protection plan, there is some great progress and discussion in protecting both big and small species in our oceans.
Seawilding's Seagrass Lead, Will Goudy, was excited about the project's success.
"It's an exciting breakthrough. We've trialed multiple methods over the last 5 years, and had our fair share of failure, but with this methodology we're proving it's possible to restore seagrass at scale," he said to Eco Magazine.
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