Seagrass wars: Shark Bay Seagrass Restoration on look out for volunteers to help restore ruined meadows

Shark Bay Seagrass Restoration is calling out for volunteers far and wide to help the critical mission to save seagrass meadows. With the seagrass season fast approaching in May, the seagrass conservation group is hoping to snag 20-30 volunteers to help with the month-long project. The Shark Bay Seagrass Restoration group has been in action since a marine heatwave combined with inland rainfall caused an extreme increase in water temperature in 2011. The soaring water temperatures reached and remained at 30C for 90 days, causing a bloom of algae. Seagrass restorer Liam Ridgley said this caused the water to turn black, break down the chain of photosynthesis, and attack the seagrass. “This was detrimental to Shark Bay, which has the largest seagrass meadows in the world. Seagrass is 270 per cent more effective at storing carbon than trees, and one square metre of seagrass releases 10 litres of oxygen per day,” he said. “The water was black for about five years, and we lost 1300km of the world’s largest seagrass meadow. To this day, it was the largest natural die off ever.” Mr Ridgley said this impacted the entire ecosystem, from fish, squid, tiger prawns, dolphins and dugongs. Due to severe erosion of the seagrass meadows and sandbars, seagrass seedlings have nothing to latch on to when released from female plants during May, June and July. Luckily enough, there is still hope thanks to the restoration team who are striving to regrow the sea grass with hessian sandbags and seagrass seedlings. Mr Ridgley said the organisation had obtained a permit to collect 28,000 seedlings from where they had washed up on the beach during the seedling season — a key part in the project volunteers took part in. From there, volunteers filled hessian sandbags with a machine dubbed the “bagginator” — filling them in about 20 seconds. Seagrass seedlings are then poked into the top of the sandbags and placed on the ocean floor, where they can grow roots into the seafloor without being washed away by currents. Mr Ridgley said the hessian bags disintegrated after 18 months, leaving beds of seagrass successfully growing. “We were first approached to conduct this research by UWA, which proved unsuccessful at first. But as we kept trying new methods, we became quite successful,” he said. “We’re now having 40 per cent survival rate which is insanity. Last season we did 2ha using 2000 sandbags. This year, we’re hoping to do 4ha using 4000 sandbags.” Mr Ridgley said the restoration team was looking for volunteers for a month-long project to restore the critical seagrass meadows for the health of the ocean and land. To volunteer visit the Shark Bay Seagrass Restoration website: https://www.sharkbayseagrassrestoration.com.au/.