Our Blue Meadows Engagement Officers have had a busy summer, attending events spanning across all of the Blue Meadows sites. Here’s a snippet of what they have been up to…
Our pop-up stand has been doing the rounds! Starting in Cornwall we celebrated National Marine Week with Cornwall Wildlife Trust, demonstrated which animals thrive in seagrass meadows at Fowey regatta and tag-teamed engagement and seed collecting with our divers in St. Austell.
Moving up the coast to Plymouth and Torbay, Drake Circus shopping centre saw over 100 people jumping into our VR seagrass meadow. We spoke to many beach goers in Paignton and Brixham with our friends at Wild Planet Trust, and discussed how art can be used to elevate marine conservation at Artizan Gallery in Torquay.
Then onto Studland and Poole! Studland provided beautiful views of our marker buoys, perfect for a joint engagement event with Studland Bay Marine Partnership. We also had the chance to speak to powerboaters and jet-skiers in Poole Harbour about how they can live harmoniously with seagrass meadows.
September took Blue Meadows to Southampton International Boat Show. The 10 days were spent spreading awareness of Blue Meadows and encouraging boat users to think about the impacts of their anchors on seagrass habitats. We were thrilled to see so many boaters already doing their part to protect the seagrass and respecting our sensitive seagrass marker buoys – great progress!
Halfway through the boat show the team had a brief stint back to the National Marine Aquarium to collaborate with Seas For Your Future. They took a group of young Ocean voyagers snorkelling, for the first time, over the local seagrass meadow in Jennycliff and got them measuring seagrass plants in the seagrass lab, learning about this important habitat along the way.
Once happily back at the Boat Show, Megan, one of our community engagement officers, hit up the Boatfolk stage to give a Blue Meadows themed talk, and the team engaged hundreds of people using virtual reality headsets, giving everyone the chance to go on their very own seagrass dive! During the show we had a unique and huge win for the team – the debut of a live seagrass plant, which thrived on the road!
With the weather changing and the days getting shorter, we’ll still be engaging where we can – including collecting plants washed up after storms that can be replanted, and presenting our Blue Meadows project to interested community groups, fostering respect of our seagrass meadows. We encourage everyone to join us on our mission by connecting with our Blue Meadows community on Facebook, where you can stay up to date, learn more and help others respect our Blue Meadows!
The post Blue Meadows: Our Seagrass Summer appeared first on Ocean Conservation Trust.