Dear Wahyudin,

there are a lot of disciplines that studied Seagrasses worldwide for decades; one of the most interesting aspects and one of the more recent treaties of these is the one cited by Natheer, but you can find a lot of publications that shows importance of Seagrasses as suggested by Cynthia: Seagrasses plays a role in the stabilization of coastal sediments (protection of the coast line) and in maintenance of marine biodiversity; state of preservation of Seagrasses can be used as indicators of water conditions (marine pollution).

Many Countries have carried out research and defense projects of Seagrasses (e.g.: MedPosidonia Project RAC/SPA of United Nations on Mediterranean Countries, GIS Posidonie in France, Life+ Poseidone and POSIDuNE in Italy, “Ramoge Agreement” between France, Italy and Principality of Monaco and Monte-Carlo, as well as projects funded in U.S. and Australia, etc.).

For a multidisciplinary approach, you can see the site of the European consortium, which realizes the “M&MS project” (http://www.seagrasses.org).

Also many non-profit organizations involved in conservation; e.g.: globally as World Seagrass Association (http://wsa.seagrassonline.org), regionally as Seagrass 2000 (http://mediterranean.seagrassonline.org/), or locally as Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Eelgrass Program (http://www.seagrassli.org) and Dorset Wildlife Trust, (http://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/seagrasses.html), just to name a few!

I believe that these projects can shed light on all the necessary keywords to raise awareness about the importance of Seagrasses addressed to the population and consequently to have an involvement on the part of the population in their preservation and conservation.

good job!

Greetings

Giovanni

The value of seagrass ecosystems cannot be overstated. Seagrass meadows rank among the most effective carbon sinks in the biosphere. They stores carbon 35 times faster than rainforests, preventing billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases escaping every year. In addition to the key role of carbon capture, they are highly productive.

Salam Natheer, thank you for your response, would you please share the references. Syukron

Dear Wahyudin

These are well known about seagrasses and they are even more productive than the coral reefs because of the fast growth.

Https://theconversation.com/failure-to-protect-seagrass-may-cost-australia-45b-12110

Syukron Natheer for the link. I already subscribe to follow the daily news from that site.

Living in a highly urbanized coastal area of Florida, USA, we have many anthropogenic stressors to the seagrass. To gain support from local environmental managers it is imperative to educate them on the value of seagrass. The main points I highlight to gain support are the importance of seagrass as a nursery habitat for economically important fish, and as a food source for endangered and threatened species such as manatees and sea turtles. While these are only fragments of the actual contribution of the seagrass resource, they invoke the most empathy. The hottest issue in our area is the continual physical damage by anthropogenic alterations and the potential damage to the resource from sea level rise in combination with plans to armor the shorelines. The main misunderstanding of the general public is that seagrass is similar to terrestrial grass like their front lawn. They don't understand that a single prop scar does not recover quickly, unlike terrestrial grasses.

Is there any real action by the government and put it into their program development? Could you give me some references on that, thanks

Dear Wahyudin,

there are a lot of disciplines that studied Seagrasses worldwide for decades; one of the most interesting aspects and one of the more recent treaties of these is the one cited by Natheer, but you can find a lot of publications that shows importance of Seagrasses as suggested by Cynthia: Seagrasses plays a role in the stabilization of coastal sediments (protection of the coast line) and in maintenance of marine biodiversity; state of preservation of Seagrasses can be used as indicators of water conditions (marine pollution).

Many Countries have carried out research and defense projects of Seagrasses (e.g.: MedPosidonia Project RAC/SPA of United Nations on Mediterranean Countries, GIS Posidonie in France, Life+ Poseidone and POSIDuNE in Italy, “Ramoge Agreement” between France, Italy and Principality of Monaco and Monte-Carlo, as well as projects funded in U.S. and Australia, etc.).

For a multidisciplinary approach, you can see the site of the European consortium, which realizes the “M&MS project” (http://www.seagrasses.org).

Also many non-profit organizations involved in conservation; e.g.: globally as World Seagrass Association (http://wsa.seagrassonline.org), regionally as Seagrass 2000 (http://mediterranean.seagrassonline.org/), or locally as Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Eelgrass Program (http://www.seagrassli.org) and Dorset Wildlife Trust, (http://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/seagrasses.html), just to name a few!

I believe that these projects can shed light on all the necessary keywords to raise awareness about the importance of Seagrasses addressed to the population and consequently to have an involvement on the part of the population in their preservation and conservation.

good job!

Greetings

Giovanni

Yudi: If you want to bore yourself to sleep, my dissertation has an in depth discussion of the management approaches. It is uploaded to my profile "Evaluating vulnerability of the urban seagrass resource to sea level rise. Just read the study area description, then skip to chapter 5 & 6. There are a bunch of references. However, they are concentrated on my region.

Thank you for your comment Giovanni. Yes, we try to educate people on the full range of ecological processes and importance of seagrass, but they tend to gravitate to helping the "warm and fuzzy" critters. We wouldn't want a manatee to miss a meal :o)

Giovanni and Cynthia, thanks for your sharing, it means a lot. Thank you

Dear Yudi,

Here is an interesting paper on the assessment of Posidonia oceanica meadows value.  Even if it is hard at best to estimate the benefits given by seagrass meadows, I think that it can be useful to communicate on their importance to raise public awareness.

Maybe the first thing to do should be to clearly identify human impacts and their magnitude before trying to create tools that assess it. However I strongly agree that we must continue to develop tools that can be used by non-scientific volunteers. Here is an example of a program that involves volunteers on the field to monitor the seagrass meadows: http://www.seagrasswatch.org

Article The value of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica: A natural capi...