The 1st March is World Seagrass Day. The UN General Assembly proclaimed 1st March as World Seagrass Day back in 2022.  It shows the urgent need to raise awareness of the critical need to take action to conserve seagrass.  (Enhancing ecosystems is an important part of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.)

Part of the problem for seagrasses is that not many people know about them.  Most people have heard of rainforests and sea ice, but seagrasses aren’t so well known or thought about.  They cover just 0.1% of the ocean floor – and yet they are vital.  They are marine flowering plants, and they form underwater meadows in shallow waters in many parts of the world

• giving food and shelter to thousands of species of fish, seahorses, turtles

• improving the quality of water by filtering, cycling and storing pollutants and nutrients – this reduces contamination in seafood

• storing carbon so they are vital in tackling the impact of climate change

• they reduce wave energy, thus protecting people from the risk of flooding and storms
  

These meadows have been declining since the 1930s – it is estimated that 7% of this habitat is lost worldwide every year.   In fact, 21% of seagrass species are either deemed Near Threatened, Vulnerable and Endangered by the IUCN Red List.    Coastal development, pollution, climate change, dredging, boating activities, unregulated fishing have all driven the degradation of seagrasses and their ecosystems.

There is hope for seagrasses, thanks to the amazing work being done by people to raise awareness of their existence and importance, and to restore them and protect them

And to help the recovery of vital seagrass habitats, the UHI Shetland’s marine science research department has launched a new project!

The £2.4 million project is called the “Restoring Shetland’s Marlie Meadows” project.  The aim is to restore 1.2 hectares of subtidal seagrass beds in the West Mainland over the next 3 years.

This project is a partnership between the initiative is a partnership between the Scottish Marine Environmental Enhancement Fund (SMEEF) and Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) Distribution.

Most of the seagrass beds in Shetland have been lost, and the new project will trial transporting plants from healthy meadows to sites where seagrass was abundant in the past.  The hope is that this will recover and enhance resilience of habitat across many sites. 

UHI Shetland is aiming to work with local organisations, residents and the wider community to do a number of things:

• To monitor the beds that are there at the moment

• To raise awareness of the importance of seagrass

• to increase the number of seagrass habitats
  

The programme is aiming to plant 14 hectares of seagrass in the next three years across Scotland.  It’s an important project to help revive seagrasses and reverse their decline.

Seagrass is the world’s only marine flowering plant, it’s bottle green leaves create amazing underwater meadows that are home to a wide variety of crabs, snails and juvenile fish.