On November 16 AQWA Foundation staff and volunteers joined other ocean-minded community members at an OzFish Seagrass for Snapper collection day – and helped achieve a milestone million!

That million, was seagrass fruits.

OzFish WA have a mission to restore the vibrant underwater world of Cockburn Sound by cultivating seagrass meadows. They do this by collecting seagrass fruit from the meadows and storing them in special tanks until their seeds sprout. They then return them back to the water in ideal conditions and locations.

Amazingly it was on Saturday, alongside our AQWA volunteers, that OzFish WA’s goal was met, reaching the 1 millionth fruit collected!

While it might seem an odd choice to remove seagrass fruit from the ocean in order to encourage seagrass growth, there’s a tried and tested method to this thinking…

Seagrass (Posidonia australis)

Seagrass in the region fruit once a year, with their fruits floating to the ocean’s surface. Many of the fruit get washed ashore or far out to sea due to WA’s complex current system, where the seeds then cannot germinate.

OzFish WA pilot the volunteer program where by boaters, SCUBA divers, anglers and passionate community members get out on the water and collect the floating seagrass fruit.

The fruit is then processed on shore, which involves letting them mature in large tanks. Then, the germinated seeds are dispersed on the ocean floor at various local sites, throughout Cockburn Sound.

Once the seeds are dispersed, local seagrass experts and OzFish volunteer citizen scientists monitor the area to make sure the seeds are flourishing!

By giving nature a helping hand, OzFish WA are creating a much-needed shortcut on the path to meadow restoration, and therefore improving the outlook for our unique Cockburn Sound.

AQWA Foundation is delighted to have supported and taken part in an initiative to restore this vital ecosystem.

Seagrass sanctuaries matter

More than 85 per cent of seagrass meadows have been lost from Cockburn Sound during the last century. This is directly related to human activities such as commercial fishing, tourism, pollution and climate change.

Cockburn Sound’s seagrass meadows are an unparalleled sanctuary for its inhabitants, acting as nursery and breeding grounds and providing food and shelter for a diverse range of Western Australian marine life, such as pink snapper, West Australian seahorse, western rock lobster, King George whiting, herring, blue swimmer crabs and more.

More generally, the health and vitality of seagrass meadows has a vast impact on other ecosystems, with their ability to stabilise soil and sediment on the ocean floor, helping to protect Australia’s shorelines from erosion and creating improved water quality and clarity – making it more ideal for corals to settle and coral reefs to form.

Seagrass meadows also play a huge part in combating climate change, as they are highly efficient at storing carbon. Just one hectare of seagrass stores 35 times more carbon than a hectare of rainforest!

Want to know more about the amazing, world-record breaking seagrasses found right here in Western Australia? Be sure to visit the Seagrass Sanctuaries Initiative page and grab the fact sheet!