Team Sea Garden
Seagrass communities are essential to the overall health of coastal ecosystems. They stabilize the sea bottom but also provide food and shelter for other marine life.
They are for example, Dugongs favourite food and they also feed turtles, sea urchins, crabs and some fish. But in addition and together with algae and mangrove, they are an active constituent of marine carbon cycles. Remember? 70% of the oxygen we breathe comes from the sea and 1 m square of seagrass will absorb 20 times more CO2 then the same surface of land grass. Seagrass therefore reduces water acidification. However, besides exploitation for human benefits (as fertilizer, insulation for houses, bandages and matresses…) they too are affected by the constant boating traffic, anchoring, pollution from human waste and climate change.
Facts & Numbers
Seagrass coverage is being lost globally at a rate of 1.5 percent per year. That amounts to about 2 football fields of seagrass lost each hour. It’s estimated that 29 percent of seagrass meadows have died off in the past century.
According to a 2011 assessment, nearly one quarter of all seagrass species for which information was adequate to judge were threatened (endangered or vulnerable).