'Grow' wild and be a seagrass steward

Seaweed Garden’s project producer Danielle Banks said the first public foray into Oban’s own seagrass meadow was exciting with ’plenty more excitement’ to come.

Snorkelled up, volunteers who went out safely with expert guides earlier this month to see the seagrass meadow for themselves also spotted lots of marine life from purple starfish to hermit crabs and Peacock worms that are commonly found through the seagrass bed. Sea slugs, cat sharks and urchins can also be found living there.

"By giving people the chance to come and look under the sea, we’re hoping it will help people feel more closely connected to that usually hidden environment and be encouraged to get involved in the seagrass project," said Danielle. "Snorkelling isn’t just for warmer climes, there’s so much to see here," she added.

At the meet’s briefing, Danielle told the volunteers that currently 90 per cent of seagrass has been ’lost’ in Scotland and it will need a huge effort to restore it.

Describing the Ganavan patch she said it was "relatively small" but "has got potential" and that Sewilding want it to become a community led project, seeing volunteers becoming its stewards.

Benefits of seagrass in shallow or intertidal areas include it being a wonderful nursery for baby fish and generally being a haven for biodiversity, the plants stabilise sediment on the sea bed helping prevent coastal erosion and can also slow down currents and absorb wave energy that can buffer the impact of storms and waves. It stores carbon doing its bit to help combat climate change - giving tourism and wellbeing a boost through the likes of wildlife watching to snorkelling and swimming over its swaying fronds are other plus points.

Earlier this year the project organised an information session at The Rockfield Centre to plant the idea which was well-attended - the next public event will be on Saturday June 6 at Ganavan when the trial will officially start - the plan is to plant some donor roots and horizontal grass stems (rhizomes) harvested from Craignish to see if they grow on the Oban patch, and then vice versa at some point as an experiment.

The June event will be a celebration of the Oban project getting underway. Interested in getting involved and helping out with restoration trial tasks? Keep an eye on Seaweed Gardens Facebook page. You can also email obanseaweedgardens@gmail.com

The seagrass rewilding project is being helped with a £10,000 grant from the Highlands and Islands Environment Foundation.

To find out more about Seawilding’s work, go here: www.seawilding.org/