Becoming

Becoming #GenerationRestoration: From underwater gardening to Seascape restoration
Dr Richard Lilley, Director and Co-Founder, Project Seagrass 🌿🐠
"There has never been a more urgent need to revive damaged ecosystems than now. Ecosystems support all life on Earth. The healthier our ecosystems are, the healthier the planet - and its people. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) aims to prevent, halt, and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. At Project Seagrass we are a Supporting Partner to the decade: We are on a mission to save the worlds seagrass ecosystems.
Seagrasses are highly productive submersed marine angiosperms that grow in shallow coastal and estuarine waters. In 2019 Project Seagrass were part of the collaboration that conducted the UK’s first ever large-scale seagrass restoration programme in Pembrokeshire. Since that programme, we have been scaling up our seagrass restoration activities and are now involved in seagrass restoration programmes in Scotland, Wales and England.
However, seagrass meadows are just one type of coastal ecosystem that should exist in a rich and productive seascape. So, starting in 2023, we are now collaborating with several other organisations on the Solent Seascape Project, the first project of its kind in the UK to initiate seascape scale recovery. Saltmarsh, oyster and seagrass ecosystem recovery is key to tipping the balance in the Solent from a degraded state to a naturally expanding, connected and productive ecosystem. In this talk I will share our journey at Project Seagrass towards becoming #GenerationRestoration; from underwater gardening to Seascape restoration."
Speaker profile:
Richard has over a decade of experience of research into marine systems. He is passionate about education, particularly marine science communication and outdoor learning. His work focuses on the sustainable supply chain management of small-scale capture fisheries, particularly those linked to seagrass ecosystems.
Richard is particularly interested in the role of seagrass meadows in providing local food security and is currently working with an international team on a Seagrass Ecosystem Services Project across the Indo-Pacific Region with this focus (Thailand, Malaysia, Timor-Leste, Indonesia and the Philippines). His work in the UK and Europe is primarily focussed on identifying seagrass ecosystem restoration opportunities and developing local capacity to support this.
Discover more:
www.projectseagrass.org
www.seagrassspotter.org
www.resow.uk
Filmed at the Gatsby Plant Science Summer School, 2023.
#seagrass #ecosystem #restoration