The value of seagrass meadows cannot simply be calculated in dollars or even biodiversity.

They are an essential part of the marine environment, providing key ecosystem services. The plants stabilise sand and mud banks, and act as a natural filtration system for catchments by taking up excessive nutrients and absorbing pollutants.

Their roots trap and stabilise the sediment, which not only helps improve water clarity and quality, but also reduces erosion and buffers coastlines against storms. Sediment banks accumulated by seagrasses may eventually form a stable substrate that can be colonised by mangroves.

The reduction of nutrients and sediment in the water also reduces impacts on offshore coral reefs. All three communities trap and hold nutrients from being dispersed and lost into the surrounding oceanic waters.

Blue Carbon

While protecting seagrass helps to ensure food security it also fights climate change. Coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass meadows and tidal wetlands have unmatched ability to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and store within their root systems. Seagrass meadows  provide carbon capture storage at rates up to 100 times greater than rainforests and it has been estimated that the world’s seagrass meadows can capture up to 83 million metric tons of carbon each year. The carbon stored in sediments from coastal ecosystems including seagrass meadows, mangrove forests and salt marshes is known as “blue carbon”.

Learn more about blue carbon here: Blue Carbon Initiative