Thousands more seagrass seeds planted

Our mission to restore the Solent’s precious seagrass meadows continues full steam ahead with almost 20,000 seeds planted in the last six months.

Last October, with the help of our dedicated volunteers, we hand-planted 500 biodegradable hessian pods –containing a total of 13,500 seagrass seeds – on the shores of Seaview on the Isle of Wight.

These were common eelgrass (Zostera marina) seeds, which is one of the two main seagrass species generally found in the Solent.

We’re planning to return to this restoration plot this spring and hope to discover new seedling growth.

Also in October, we continued our sustainable collection of dwarf eelgrass (Zostera noltei) seeds – the other main species – at Farlington Marshes near Portsmouth.

We moved the seeds to specialist aquariums at the University of

Portsmouth (UoP), our scientific project partners, where they could develop safely.

Once the seeds had fully matured, we returned to Farlington in February and planted some of them in new areas of the mudflats. We hope this will encourage fresh growth of this special marine habitat.

Alongside our volunteers and partners Boskalis Westminster and UoP, we’d like to thank the Isle of Wight Distillery and Wightlink for their support as well as everyone who has sponsored a seagrass seedpod. It’s only thanks to this collaborative action that we can make seagrass restoration possible.

You can follow the latest project updates at hiwwt.org.uk/seagrassrestoration, plus find out about our latest marine restoration project in the Solent on page 18.

The number of seagrass species in the Solent, though only two are commonly found.

In A Nutshell

■ Seagrass is a globally threatened marine habitat and one of the most important on Earth. These coastal meadows are home to amazing wildlife and store huge amounts of carbon, making them a key natural solution to the climate crisis.

■ Seagrasses are the only fully marine flowering plants in the world. They live, pollinate, and reproduce in seawater but are restricted to shallow coastal areas with sufficient sunlight to grow.

■ In the UK, it’s estimated we’ve lost up to 92% of our seagrass in the past century. Since launching our Solent Seagrass Restoration Project in 2021 we’ve planted tens of thousands of seagrass seeds along the Solent’s coastline.