Hundreds of ‘seagrass tubes’ planted to kick-off multi-million pound restoration of Thames - Zoological Society of London

Thousands of seagrass shoots have been planted in the Thames, as we kick off work to transform one of the world's most famous waterways.

Over the course of one week, our conservationists collected nearly 1,000 cylindrical ‘seagrass cores’ – tubes of mud extracted from the Thames, each one containing multiple individual dwarf eelgrass shoots – from a seagrass meadow in Essex, before carefully planting each one in mudflats in Kent – as part of their work to make the estuary more resilient to climate change.

One of the largest UK restoration efforts using this method, our work is the first step in restoring a thriving seagrass meadow. The ambition is that over the next few years, the meadow will grow to cover an area the size of at least 1.5 football pitches.

Transforming the Thames

The work launches the start of on-the-ground work for Transforming the Thames - an ambitious ZSL-led project bringing together 20 partners to turn the tide on the health of the Greater Thames Estuary and deliver wide reaching benefits to the British wildlife and the 8 million people that live along the Estuary.

The five-year project brings together conservationists, local communities, government bodies and landowners, building on decades of experience to recover a rich, varied coastal landscape by 2030.