SEAGRASS is known as a “wonder plant”, since it can absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) much faster than trees. Last week, scientists began planting a million seagrass seeds along the Pembrokeshire Coast.
The mass planting is part of a new project to save seagrass.
In the last century, it’s thought that the UK has lost 92% of its coastal seagrass, due to coastline development and pollution. Scientists from Swansea University are working to change that – with the help of WWF and Sky Ocean Rescue.
Seagrass really is a wonder plant! A whopping 10% of annual ocean carbon storage is done by seagrass, even though it only takes up just 0.2% of the seafloor. It can suck up carbon from the atmosphere up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests, and provides the perfect home for many types of fish like cod, plaice and pollock.
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Last summer, 750,000 seeds were gathered from sites around the British coast and stored at the laboratories in Swansea University.
The seeds were then transferred into small hessian sandbags and lowered onto the seabed.
Another 250,000 seeds will then be gathered later this year,m and added to the meadow in November.
Should the seagrass planting on the Pembrokeshire coast be successful, conservationists hope that millions more super seagrass seeds are planted around the whole UK.
1 Comment
katkid10 · 4 years ago
I LOVE SEAGRASS!!!!!!!!! Most of the ocean food chains rely on seagrass: fish feed on the grass and the predators eat the fish.