Community Engagement
We are working to connect communities across the Southwest with their local seagrass meadows and empower them to take action for its protection.
Some of the biggest threats to seagrass come from human behaviour, particularly physical damage and poor water quality.
Our community engagement work focuses on encouraging small behavioural changes that can make a big impact – such as encouraging boat users to anchor outside of known seagrass areas. We believe that protecting seagrass starts with understanding. By increasing knowledge of these habitats, our community engagement empowers people to care about seagrass. After all, how can someone care about something if they don‘t know where or what it is? Throughout all our community engagement work, we want to increase connection to seagrass, and we do this in a number of ways.
Engagement Events
Our engagement events take two forms – targeted engagement and general awareness raising. Targeted events tend to be local to our Blue Meadows sites and are tailored around what the threats to the local seagrass habitats are. For example, in areas with high amounts of anchoring, where we have installed Sensitive Habitat Marker Buoys and Advanced Mooring Systems, we host events tailored towards boat users. This may include talks at local yacht clubs, pop-up stands at local marinas or workshops with local marine groups. Across all our Blue Meadows sites, as well as further afield, general awareness raising is pivotal, as we believe the more people that know about seagrass, the more chance of its protection and recovery.
With every person we engage with, we share simple, tangible actions that individuals can take to make a real difference in the world of seagrass conservation. This can range from not anchoring in Voluntary No Anchor Zones to just having a conversation about seagrass. There is something everyone can do to support seagrass!
Digital Engagement and Public Perception Surveys
We have developed a Digital Seagrass Experience – a fun and immersive way for people to engage with seagrass remotely. By doing this, we are able to increase the accessibly of seagrass meadows, allowing our work to reach people who may not have the opportunity to explore seagrass first hand.
We are also working to understand how people perceive seagrass, through a Seagrass Perception Survey. As well as increasing our knowledge on the relationship between people and seagrass, our perception survey will allow us to target barriers to people getting involved in seagrass conservation. The results from this survey will inform and improve our future engagement efforts.
Seagrass Stewards and Citizen Science
In our mission to empower local communities to care for and act for the protection of seagrass, we have set in motion a scheme known as Seagrass Stewards. This programme has been co-developed with passionate members of local communities. It aims to increase knowledge through provision of opportunities such as training sessions and workshops, to support individuals to take action in protecting seagrass meadows. This action can take many forms, from hands-on involvement to sharing knowledge on local seagrass.
We are also working on ways for members of the public to become more involved in Blue Meadows, through citizen science programmes. The first of these, the Blue Meadows Coastal Count, allows people to collect data on how seagrass areas are being used recreationally whilst spending time near the coast.
Partnerships
Across our Blue Meadows sites, local partners are invaluable in helping us organise and deliver meaningful engagement opportunities. From Harbour Authorities and councils to local cafes and community groups, we rely on these partnerships to carry out our work. These relationships strengthen our connection with the communities we work in and enable us to reach and involve more people!
