12 seagrass genera for 12 months, keeping us informed on when each genera was first described and how old they are getting.
The calendar is available in PDF and can be easily printed in colour of B&W, in A4 format, easy to store and travel with.
The “making” of the calendar was a great way to connect people and to share photos across the world.
Thank you to those of you who donated photos to us and to Jane Thomas for putting it together.
Enjoy!
Leanne talks about seagrass and how it provides food security on SeaWeb:
http://www.seaweb.org/science/SeagrassesandFoodSecurity.php
Helen Taylor talks about safeguarding seagrasses on Ocean Voices:
http://www.seaweb.org/getinvolved/oceanvoices/HelenTaylor.php
Anchana has been featured on Ocean Voices on the SeaWeb. Find out what inspires her on the feature article:
http://www.seaweb.org/getinvolved/oceanvoices/AchanaPrathep.php
November is seagrass month on SeaWeb and to kick off a great theme for a great month, SeaWeb will be featuring interviews with seagrass scientists as part of this initiative so head on over to the SeaWeb website to check it out!
SeaWeb
A new manual aimed at building knowledge and raising awareness of seagrass habitats has hit the shelves (well not literally)! The training manual, titled “Seagrass Syllabus” was developed by The World Seagrass Association and Seagrass-Watch in partnership with Conservation International.
The Seagrass Syllabus is the first of a series of initiatives that the WSA is taking to increase the profile of seagrasses within the global conservation arena. Many WSA members contributed to creating and designing the manual, and the WSA welcomes suggestions to continue to improve on the manual.
Although aimed at resource managers, the manual is accessible enough for the general public and it represents a useful tool to ensure that seagrass ecosystems receive due attention so that their ecosystem services can be secured for the future. The Seagrass Syllabus is made freely available worldwide to continue to increase awareness on seagrass ecosystems, to educate the general public and to improve the management of this critical resource.
To download a copy of the seagrass syllabus, please visit the WSA website or at this direct link: http://wsa.seagrassonline.org/images/stories/download/Seagrass_Syllabus.pdf
Thanks to Klemens Gann, the WSA would like to share this seagrass video from the Philippines. If you have video you would like to share, please let us know.
To access the video click on the link below, and Enjoy!
Seagrass meadows around the world continue to be under threat from the activities of humans. Over fishing, climate change, coastal development, extreme weather and poor land management are all contributing to the continued global loss of these diverse and productive marine habitats that are critical for the continued functioning of the coastal environment and the services it provides.
Over the last decade a range of publications by leading global scientists have highlighted how governments, communities, industry and global conservation are failing to take the action necessary to prevent the further degradation of these important ecosystem service providers. Recent high profile research publications have shown how individual seagrass species are potentially under threat from extinction, whilst the global area of seagrass is being reduced at a rate of up to two soccer fields per hour.
Seagrass meadows are a valuable means of support for global food security due to their role as critically important nursery habitats for many of the world’s fisheries. They also directly provide fishery habitat and support endangered species such as the dugongs and green turtles. Seagrass meadows bubble oxygen into the water and sediments, sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and cleaning the coastal environment of many pollutants. If current patterns of habitat loss coupled to the increasing influence of climate change are not controlled then the world faces a potentially future devoid of these productive, valuable and diverse habitats.
Not many people know what a seagrass meadow is, but it’s estimated that 1 billion people live within 50 km of one. Today, on World Oceans Day, scientists from the World Seagrass Association are seeking to highlight the value and threats to these meadows so that greater emphasis and resources are placed on their conservation.
To help save seagrasses into the future the World needs to:
Seagrasses in South Florida, the Florida Museum of Natural History
Seagrasses at CoSEE (The Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
Mediterranean Seagrass Ecosystem at MarBEF (Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning)
Unsworth and Cullen (2010). “Recognising the necessity for Indo-Pacific seagrass conservation.” Conservation Letters 3(2): 63-73. Follow the link
Hughes et al (2009). “Associations of concern: declining seagrasses and threatened dependent species.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7(5): 242-246. Follow the link
Waycott et al. (2009). “Accelerating loss of seagrasses across the globe threatens coastal ecosystems.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106(30): 12377-12381. Follow the Link
Duarte et al. (2008). The charisma of coastal ecosystems: addressing the imbalance. Estuaries and Coasts 31: 233–238 Follow the link
Orth et al (2006). A Global Crisis for Seagrass Ecosystems. Bioscience 56: 987–996 Follow the link
Frederick T. Short, Beth Polidoro, Suzanne R. Livingstone, Kent E. Carpenter, Salomão Bandeira, Japar Sidik Bujang, Hilconida P. Calumpong, Tim J.B. Carruthers, Robert G. Coles, William C. Dennison, Paul L.A. Erftemeijer, Miguel D. Fortes, Aaren S. Freeman, T.G. Jagtap, Abu Hena M. Kamal, Gary A. Kendrick, W. Judson Kenworthy, Yayu A. La Nafie, Ichwan M. Nasution, Robert J. Orth, et al. 2011. Extinction risk assessment of the world’s seagrass species. Biological Conservation, 144: 1961-1971
By Miguel Fortes
It is only very recently that the importance of protecting and restoring seagrass habitats has been clarified as a climate change mitigation strategy. Towards this end, Conservation International, IUCN, IOC‐UNESCO and partners are “building a program to coordinate and guide establishment of coastal ‘blue’ carbon as a conservation and management tool contributing to climate change mitigation and the development of associated conservation financing mechanisms”. The initial action in order to realize the program was the formation in February 2011 of the “Blue Carbon” International Scientific Working Group.
The group is tasked to:
Five of the 22 members of the working group are well known to us in the WSA and seagrass circle: Carlos M. Duarte, Miguel D. Fortes, Jim Fourqurean, Nuria Marba, and Peter Ralph. The working group is convened by Conservation International, International Union for Conservation of Nature, and the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. The Waterloo Foundation, NASA and UNEP have provided funding for the group.
The initial recommendations of the group are coming out soon in a pamphlet: “Minimizing Carbon Emissions and Maximizing Carbon Sequestration and Storage by Seagrasses, Tidal Marshes, Mangroves”. They embody the immediate steps that need to be taken by coastal communities, managers, policy makers and the scientific community. In brief, these steps are:
At the moment, the group is developing the Global Coastal Carbon Data Archive.
For more information:
Recommendations from the 1st meeting of the Blue Carbon Scientific Working group
Blue Carbon blog
