Falmouth
Amount of buoys:
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Amount of AMS:
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Hectares protected:
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Hectares restored:
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Falmouth is one of the country’s most beautiful and protected marine areas. It is a Special Area of Conservation (SAC), Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) and a Special Protection Area (SPA). In addition to these, it is located within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), making Falmouth a unique place for nature.
This makes the Fal and Helford SAC a perfect place for some of the UK’s most valuable and diverse habitats, seagrasses and maerl beds. There are 10 distinct subtidal seagrass meadows of Zostera marina within Falmouth Bay, most notably at Flushing, St Mawes, Maenporth, The Helford River and Gerran’s Bay. Collectively these meadows cover over 160 hectares of seagrass habitat.
In 2022, Falmouth Harbour Commissioners became the first Harbour Authority to partner with Blue Meadows, installing our Sensitive Habitat Marker Buoys to signpost these fragile habitats. These markers promote a Voluntary No Anchor Zone (VNAZ) and delineate the boundaries of over 20 hectares of seagrass meadows. Now, there are 32 of these sensitive habitat markers, protect 6 of Falmouth’s seagrass meadows.
At Flushing, there is a seagrass regeneration site, where traditional swing moorings have been replaced with Advanced Mooring Systems (AMS) to encourage the natural regrowth of seagrass.
Next year, we are excited to be launching a multi-year collaborative project to restore 10 hectares of seagrass near Swanpool, that’s around 14 football pitches in size. It’s going to the the UK’s largest subtidal seagrass restoration project!
Case study locations
Working with local communities and stakeholders, we hope to work in more locations protecting and restoring vital seagrass meadows. Get in touch to help us protect a meadow near you.
Help us create Blue Meadows
If you’d like to find out more about seagrass, or our protection and restoration work, then we would love to hear from you.
