Restoring Seagrass Meadows for the UN's Sustainable Development Goals: How UK Experts are Doing It

The amazing plant's contribution to the most significant to-do list in human history, according to experts at the forefront of efforts to restore the UK's coastal seagrass meadows, should be reevaluated.

Value of seagrass on UN Sustainable Development Goals

(Photo : Benjamin L. Jones/Unsplash)

The only underwater flowering plant in the world, seagrass, is essential for biodiversity and also absorbs carbon dioxide to combat climate change, as per ScienceDaily.

Researchers from Swansea University made the case in a new paper that was recently published in the journal Science, taking into account seagrasses' value beyond carbon in the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which are a common goal for building a better and more sustainable future.

In fact, maintaining and rebuilding seagrass meadows helps to accomplish 16 of the 17 objectives.

The authors, Dr. Richard Unsworth and Dr. Leanne Cullen-Unsworth emphasized that interest in employing seagrasses as a natural-based solution for climate change and biodiversity recovery is driven by the planetary emergency.

However, seagrass is highly sensitive to stresses, and in many locations, the danger of loss and degradation.

There is rising interest in employing seagrasses as a natural alternative for greenhouse gas mitigation, according to Dr. Unsworth, who oversees the University's team and is a founding director of the marine conservation organization Project Seagrass.

But if seagrasses' ecological health is still in jeopardy, it raises questions about their potential to help find natural solutions to biodiversity and climate emergencies.

The team's most recent study looked at the significant ecological function that seagrasses have and how reconsidering their protection is essential to understanding how they contribute to the battle against our global disaster.

However, given the size of the interventions needed, there are significant ecological, social, and legal challenges and bottlenecks to seagrass restoration and protection.

Today's developments in molecular ecology, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and marine robots all present fresh chances to address conservation issues in challenging areas on a global scale that has never been possible.

Only by looking beyond carbon and seeing seagrass meadows' actual worth can we put them on a road to net gain and eventually zero loss.

Also Read: Seagrass Meadows: A Fishing Ground as Reliable Source of Food to Fishermen in Poor Countries

Importance of seagrass

Because they alter their environment to produce distinctive habitats, seagrasses are sometimes referred to as foundation plant species or ecosystem engineers, as per Ocean.

In addition to improving the conditions for seagrasses, these changes have a significant impact on other creatures, serve ecological purposes, and offer a range of services to people.

Humans have been using seagrass for more than 10,000 years.

They have also been used to fill beds and even automobile seats, thatch roofs, weave furniture, fertilize fields, and insulate homes.

However, what they do in their natural environment is what helps people and the ocean the most.

Seagrasses help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, sustain commercial fishing and biodiversity, and clean the nearby water.

Because they provide a leafy underwater canopy that shelters small invertebrates (including crabs, shrimp, and other types of crustaceans), small fish, and juveniles of bigger fish species, seagrasses are sometimes referred to as nursery environments.

Like lichens and Spanish moss on trees, several types of bacteria, invertebrates, and microalgae (such as diatoms) develop directly on the live seagrass fronds called "epiphytes."

Other creatures, such as sponges, clams, polychaete worms, and sea anemones, flourish between the blades or in the sediments.

Larger creatures are drawn to the seagrass because of the buildup of smaller organisms inside of and on the seagrass blades.

The upshot is that seagrasses may support a wide variety of fish, sharks, turtles, marine mammals (dugongs and manatees), mollusks (octopus, squid, cuttlefish, snails, bivalves), sponges, crustaceans (shrimp, crabs, copepods, isopods, and amphipods), polychaete worms, sea urchins, and sea anemones.