Seagrass is one of Nature’s ways of tackling climate change because it captures carbon and stores it. It also filters water, prevents erosion & supports biodiversity.
Baldoyle Bay Seagrass Restoration Project is the first carbon-capture focused seagrass restoration project in Europe. its aim is to revive and recover the lost seagrass ecosystem in Baldoyle Bay and to do so with the participation of Local Government and local, coastal & marine communities.
150 years ago, two species of seagrass were thriving and flourishing in Baldoyle Bay (a Special Area of Conservation), but in 2012 National Parks and Wildlife recorded that there was no seagrass at all growing there anymore.
Recently it was spotted growing in this waters again, very sparsely though, and only one species (Zosteranoltii)… but it’s definitely there, and that was all the motivation that Eveann and Joan, the project’s co-founders, needed to get the restoration activity started!
Seagrass and sediment samples from Baldoyle Bay Special Area of Conservation (SAC) will be harvested from May to September and grown/analyzed in custom-made tanks under different experimental conditions. The tanks are scientifically constructed to replicate the seagrass environment of Baldoyle Bay under strictly controlled conditions. The aim of the project is to measure the propagation success and carbon-capture of each innovative, seagrass-growing method, to discover new mechanisms of seagrass restoration. If successful, it will form a blueprint to be rolled out nationally.
Baldoyle Bay SAC Community Centre will be seagrass sampling site
Eveann Nolan from Sutton and Joan Hopkins from Baldoyle, have no background in Marine Science – and the talk they will deliver on Friday, 26th April to HYC CG Members and guests willing to support the initiative will explain how, through sheer determination and passion, two ordinary, committed, locals were able make it happen.
