This archive report was first published on 18 June 2020.
On World Oceans Day, June 8, 2020, the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) launched a report titled Out of the blue: The value of seagrasses to the environment and to people, highlighting the importance of seagrasses in maintaining a healthy coastal ecosystem.
Seagrasses, known as the 'lungs of the sea' due to their role in producing oxygen in the water, provide numerous functions, including stabilising the sea bottom, providing food and habitat for other marine life, and supporting coastal communities.
East Africa's coast has 12 known seagrass species, and seagrass ecosystems are biologically rich and highly productive, providing valuable nursery habitats to more than 20 per cent of the world's largest 25 fisheries and filtering pathogens, bacteria, and pollution out of seawater.
According to the report, seagrasses covering an area of seven square kilometres of Gazi Bay at the Diani-Chale Marine National Reserve, Kenya, comprise of a total carbon stock of 620,000 Mg, with a monetary value estimated at $19 million in regulated global climate at a global scale.
However, new data suggest that seagrasses are among the least protected coastal habitats, with only 26 per cent of recorded seagrass meadows falling within Marine Protected Areas compared with 40 per cent of coral reefs and 43 per cent of mangroves.
UNEP said that an estimated seven percent of seagrass habitat is being lost worldwide each year, which is close to a football field of seagrass lost every 30 minutes.
The main threats to seagrass meadows include urban, industrial, and agricultural run-off, coastal development, dredging, unregulated fishing and boating activities, and climate change.
