Seagrass meadows provide many ecosystem services, from fish juveniles nursery, to feeding ground for dugongs and sea turtles, coastal erosion mitigation and carbon sink.

Seagrass meadows are subjects to degradation like many other natural ecosystems. Our research team tested several seagrass restoration methodologies. Some of them have been successful. We involved local communities in the restoration work, to raise awareness on the importance of seagrass, create ownership and reflect about the threats to seagrasses, as well as on the risks of reducing their importance for their livelihoods that depend on wealthy seagrass meadows.

From 2017 to 2020, we conducted trainings on restoration methods, revisited the causes of degradation and assessed the restoration piloted in three different sites. Seagrass beds’ main drivers of degradation are cyclones, sand accretion, trampling and sedimentation from flooding, as well as seagrass uproot for clams collection.