World Seagrass Day 2023
1 March, 2023 - Today raises awareness of seagrasses and the ecosystem functions and services they provide.
Seagrass is a vital part of the marine ecosystem due to their numerous functions that includes stabilizing the sea bottom, providing food and habitat for other marine organisms, maintaining water quality, and supporting local economies.
Seagrass in the Pacific extend conservatively to 1446.2 km2, with the greatest extent (84%) in Melanesia.
The MACBLUE Management and Conservation of Blue Carbon Ecosystems) project being jointly implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit GIZ GmbH, the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) in close cooperation with their four partner governments works to persevere both the biodiversity and ecosystem services of these important coastal ecosystems.
16 seagrass species occur across 17 of the 22 Pacific Island Countries with the highest number in Melanesia, followed by Micronesia and Polynesia respectively. The greatest diversity of seagrass occurs in Papua New Guinea (13 species) and attenuates eastward across the Pacific to two species in French Polynesia.
MACBLUE works for innovative remote sensing approaches to mapping the extent of seagrass and mangroves ecosystems in four Pacific Island countries: Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
Despite covering only 0.1 per cent of the ocean floor, these meadows are highly efficient carbon sinks, storing up to 18 per cent of the world's oceanic carbon.
In a world where the future of seagrass ecosystems is looking progressively dire, the Pacific Islands appears as a global bright spot, where pressures remain relatively low and seagrass more resilient.
