England’s Largest Seagrass Planting Programme is Underway in Plymouth Sound - Ocean Conservation Trust
Today, on 21st April 2021, work on England’s largest seagrass planting programme is taking place in Plymouth Sound National Marine Park.
A total of 16,000 seagrass seed bags and 2,200 seedling bags are being planted by the Ocean Conservation Trust (OCT) as part of the LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES project being led by Natural England to help support and improve the resilience of our marine environment.
The four-year project aims to plant a total of eight hectares of seagrass meadows – four hectares in Plymouth Sound and four hectares in the Solent Maritime Special Area of Conservation.
This work is extremely important as it is estimated that the UK may have lost up to 92 per cent of its seagrass1. Factors including wasting disease, pollution and physical disturbance have been identified as contributing causes.
By planting seagrass in the Sound, the project hopes to create more seagrass meadows which provide homes for juvenile fish and protected creatures like seahorses and stalked jellyfish. Seagrass also has an integral role in stabilising the seabed, cleaning the surrounding seawater and capturing and storing significant amounts of carbon.
The OCT has been leading the restoration work as a project partner. All the seagrass seeds have been bagged at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth by Aquarium and OCT staff, as well as volunteers. Seedlings have been growing in the Aquarium’s special seagrass laboratory since January.
ReMEDIES is funded by the EU LIFE programme and led by Natural England in partnership with Ocean Conservation Trust (OCT), Marine Conservation Society, Royal Yachting Association and Plymouth City Council/Tamar Estuaries Consultative Forum.
Mark Parry, Development Officer at Ocean Conservation Trust, said: “Our first successful planting effort is only possible because of all the hard work of the partners in the LIFE ReMEDIES project. These events have taken over 12 months of planning and include a combination of volunteers who have visited the National Marine Aquarium creating our planting units and our dive volunteers. This truly is a community effort. It is incredible to see the support from
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Posted On: 22/04/2021