The Seagrass Consortium was founded in 2022 in order to implement large-scale seagrass restoration across Europe, both in support of the UN Decade On Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) and in anticipation of the recently adopted EU Nature Restoration Law. The Nature Restoration Law combines an overarching restoration objective for the long-term recovery of nature in the EU’s land and sea areas, with binding restoration targets for specific habitats and species, including seagrass meadows that deliver significant benefits, including those for climate change mitigation.
Our consortium’s focus is on accelerating and developing both the scientific and logistical methods and standards to enable seagrass restoration at scale. The Seagrass Consortium was designed to be inclusive of all four native European seagrass species, and to act as a vehicle for bringing together the European seagrass restoration community. An additional aim is also to create unique employment for young people in coastal communities to carry out restoration work, achieving a simultaneous social impact. It’s my opinion that if we want to truly build #GenerationRestoration, then we need to do everything in our power to provide both the training and funding required to facilitate ecosystem restoration as a profession.
Through The Seagrass Consortium and its partners, the restoration of seagrass ecosystems is now underway at sites in the UK, Netherlands and France, with additional fieldwork and research being undertaken at sites in Denmark, Germany and Spain. Our first site is in the Oosterschelde, a former estuary in the province of Zeeland, Netherlands. In 1984 the Oostershecle had over 1000ha of seagrass meadows, but only a little over 200ha remains today. Since May 8, 2002, the entire Oosterschelde has been designated as a national park.
A second site is in Bassin d'Arcachon, France. Following years of work to remove the pressures on the system, pilot seagrass restoration work began here in 2021 undertaken by the Parc naturel marin du Bassin d'Arcachon. The vision is for the ‘restoration of the meadows to surfaces and functions equivalent to those of the early 2000s’ (~2000ha target) and it constitutes a ‘major objective’ of the Marine Park’s plan (Plan de gestion) 2017-2032. Do you want to get involved? Click here.
A third restoration site is the Étang de Berre. The Étang de Berre is a large Mediterranean lagoon (~155km2) and it was home to over 6000ha of seagrass! Unfortunately, following years of pollution (including significant freshwater input) over 99% of the seagrass disappeared (just 1.2ha remained in 2009). However, following two decades of hard work from GIPREB to reduce the pressures on the lagoon, active seagrass restoration work has now begun as we work towards a restoration target of 1500ha of seagrass in the lagoon. Do you want to learn more? Contact GIPREB here.
As a consortium we believe it is important (wherever possible) to support ‘locally conceptualised’ restoration programmes. Local people often have a strong connection to their seascapes, but many marine habitats and features are largely hidden from view. Building a wider sense of ownership and stewardship of our seascapes will of course be challenging, but seagrass is a wonderfully accessible ‘gateway habitat’ (both physically and conceptually) into discussing Ocean Literacy topics more broadly. We also believe better communication is needed to increase understanding of the special characteristics of different seascapes (such as the Étang de Berre’s seagrass meadows) and their contributions and ‘value’ to society.
Founding partners in the consortium include staff from the Sea Ranger Service, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Project Seagrass, L'Office Français de la Biodiversité (OFB), Institute of Environmental Hydraulics of Cantabria (IHCantabria) and the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA-CSIC-UIB). As a consoritum we support seagrass restoration programmes both with scientific input, and through the Sea Ranger Service who provide the additional ‘boots on the ground’ capacity which is required at ‘peak’ times in the year. For seagrass restoration programmes this is when we are planting seeds / transplanting, or later in the season when monitoring is required.
Ultimately we are trying to grow a European seagrass community around the restoration of the four native European species, and in order to bring people together so we're hosting the 2nd European Seagrass Restoration Workshop in Bassin d’Arcachon next April 7th-11th 2025 (Save the date!). It won't be the 1st European Seagrass Restoration Workshop, because that was held in Portinho da Arrábida, Portugal in 2010 and was organized under the Biomares Project (LIFE06 NAT/P/192).
Do you want to know more about the 2nd European Seagrass Restoration Workshop or The Seagrass Consortium’s work more generally? Then please e-mail Dr Richard Lilley here.
This article is originally by Dr Richard Lilley of Seagrass Consortium