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When it comes to restoration, lots of people’s first thoughts turn to green living: not just the sustainable use of resources but also the green that comes with lush, healthy environments – tree planting, window boxes and thriving allotments. But, while people can have a significant positive impact in their homes, communities and gardens, another ecosystem holds huge potential: the ocean. Covering 70% of our planet, a healthy ocean is key to a healthy planet. The ocean produces oxygen and provides us with food, medicines and livelihoods as well as many other benefits. What’s more, the ocean is a vital carbon sink which absorbs and stores significant amounts of carbon, therefore slowing the process of global warming. Researchers believe the ocean absorbs more than a quarter of emissions generated by humans each year. But its potential isn’t limitless – at some point, the ocean will become saturated and will no longer be able to play this vital part in protecting our planet from the impacts of climate change. Healthy marine habitats, such as seagrass meadows, kelp forests and oyster reefs are critical in absorbing and storing carbon. They can also act as natural buffers that protect coastlines, enhance community benefits and reduce maintenance costs for existing coastal protection measures. Yet, marine restoration efforts haven’t always taken the limelight, overshadowed by terrestrial carbon offsetting and tree planting efforts. More recently though, these seabed habitats have been garnering more attention. They naturally occur in oceans and there are often little to no maintenance costs once they are successfully established. So, a small investment in protecting and restoring them now could result in a huge range of ongoing benefits for people and planet. Seagrass Restoration Seagrass is the only flowering plant able to live in seawater. The vast meadows of seagrass you can find underwater are not only beautiful but are also one of the world’s most valuable habitats, providing food and shelter to thousands of sea creatures. Seagrass meadows are sometimes known as the ‘rainforests of the sea’ for their ability to store huge amounts of carbon. In fact, these meadows can absorb carbon 35 times more quickly than tropical rainforests. Sadly, much of the UK’s seagrass has been lost in recent years. This is due to a variety of factors including water pollution, sewage discharge, coastal development, dredging, bottom trawling and anchor damage. Conservationists are now fighting to restore these habitats to their former glory. One such attempt is by Project Seagrass – a research and restorationfocused charity which has been working to conserve seagrass ecosystems since 2013. As well as researching the impact of seagrass restoration – with more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers published over the last 10 years – the charity has completed a number of restoration projects, big and small, around the world. For example, through its twoyear Seagrass Ocean Rescue project, the charity planted one million seeds over an area the size of two rugby pitches in Dale, Wales. The LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES Project, led by Natural England and the Ocean Conservation Trust, is working on a seagrass restoration project of a similarly large scale. Seagrass seeds were collected from meadows and transported to a specially constructed lab within Plymouth’s National Marine Aquarium. There, the seeds were cultivated and grown into seedlings. But there was an important step before they were ready to be planted at sea. Volunteers were recruited to help put the thousands of seedlings into biodegradable hessian bags with sand (to weigh the bags down when they’re dropped in the ocean to reduce the natural lottery of whether the seeds will settle). Once bagged up by the volunteers, they were hand-dropped from a barge into the ocean. There they would settle over the coming weeks to grow into healthy seagrass meadows. Some projects, such as the Tees Rivers Trust’s native seagrass reintroduction programme, uses another method: complementing the burlap sack planting method by growing additional seagrass shoots to adulthood in an artificial setting before adding the mature plants to the restoration areas. i m a K u r a s h i s u k e D a © l e f t Kelp forests provide shelter for lots of different marine animals and act as a buffer which reduces the impact of storm surges, minimising coastal erosion Tees Rivers Trust collecting seagrass seeds on Lindisfarne, collecting Zostera marina spathes sustainably for planting out in the Tees following processing Tr u s t i v e r s RB a x t e r, Te e s K a t e © | 5

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