Seagrass meadows awareness to highlight SeyCCAT’s involvement at COP 26   |29 September 2021

Marie-France Watson of SeyCCAT briefing journalists on their involvement in the forthcoming COP26

As part of its campaign to minimise the loss of the seagrass meadows, prioritise their protection and recognise the array of ecosystem services that they provide, the Seychelles Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust (SeyCCAT) will further the crusade by bringing it to the upcoming COP26 summit in Glasgow between October 31 and November 12.

The summit will bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Seagrass meadows which SeyCCAT, through its Coastal Wetland and Climate Change project has been raising awareness on for the past two years, would be central to this.

Seagrasses cover less than 0.2 percent of ocean floor, but store about 10 percent of the carbon buried in the oceans each year.

They are being lost at a rate of 1.5 percent per year and have lost approximately 30 percent of historical global coverage.

Seagrasses are underwater plants that evolved from land plants. They are like terrestrial plants in that they have leaves, flowers, seeds, roots, and connective tissues, and they make their food through photosynthesis.

Unlike terrestrial plants, however, they do not have strong stems to hold themselves up – instead they’re supported by the buoyancy of the water that surrounds them.

Seagrasses are a very important food source and habitat for wildlife, supporting a diverse community of organisms including fish, octopuses, sea turtles, shrimp, blue crabs, oysters, sponges, sea urchins, anemones, clams, and squid.

Seagrasses have been called “the lungs of the sea” because they release oxygen into the water through the process of photosynthesis.

In 2019, the government of Seychelles showed its desire to include blue carbon, in particular mangroves and seagrass, in its NDC and following that, the PEW Charitable Trust agreed to provide a grant and technical expertise from its Coastal Wetlands team and The Nature Conservancy’s International Climate Policy team to Seychelles through SeyCCAT.

The PEW Charitable Trust’s funded project focuses on seagrass meadows as critical habitats for addressing the impacts of climate change.

The project includes both national and international partners, such as the University of Seychelles – Blue Economy Research Institute (BERI), University of Oxford, Deakin University and local non-governmental organisations such as the Island Conservation Society (ICS).

SeyCCAT envisions for Seychelles’ ocean and islands to be stewarded by the people of Seychelles, generating sustainable benefits for future generations to share, while its mission is to strategically invest in ocean stakeholders to generate new learning, bold action and sustainable blue prosperity in Seychelles.

Its role remains to competitively grant at least US $750,000 per annum to support the stewardship of Seychelles’ ocean resources, island life and blue economy.

SeyCCAT is committed to developing strong and lasting creative collaborations to advance its mission with partnerships that will enable it to deliver its objectives to support new and existing marine and coastal protected areas and sustainable use zones, empower the fisheries sector with robust science and knowhow to improve governance, sustainability, value and market options, promote the rehabilitation of marine and coastal habitats and ecosystems that have been degraded by local and global impacts, develop and implement risk reduction and social resilience plans to adapt to the effects of climate change and also trial and nurture business models to secure the sustainable development of Seychelles’ blue economy.

Roland Duval