Marine protection

Restoring seagrass meadows

Seagrass meadows play an important role as biodiversity hotspots in shallow marine ecosystems worldwide, including in the coastal areas of the North Sea and Baltic Sea. They provide shelter and food, for example for numerous fish, crustaceans and invertebrates. They are important carbon sinks and produce oxygen and thus make an important contribution to mitigating human-induced climate change. They also support coastal protection by counteracting erosion, stabilizing the seabed and buffering wave energy.  

In addition, sugar and starch, for example, can be extracted from seagrass and it can also be used to insulate houses or produce textiles in an environmentally friendly way.

In recent decades, seagrass beds worldwide have suffered greatly as a result of human intervention such as pollution, coastal development or the consequences of climate change. For this reason, conservation measures to preserve and restore this valuable marine habitat are essential, especially in the context of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration and of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 "Life Below Water".

In order to counteract these human interventions as quickly as possible, the German Ocean Foundation has launched a marine conservation campaign to re-establish large areas of seagrass meadows in particular in the coastal regions of the German Baltic Sea. Seagrass meadows are to be planted on a large scale, their survival studied and documented.