What lies beneath

The UK's seagrass meadows are an important wildlife habitat and fundamental to combating climate change, but they're disappearing at a rapid rate. Jack Watkins finds out more about the ongoing fight to save them

- Jack Watkins

A HIDDEN world lies within shallow waters around the British coastline, but parts of it are being lost before many of us have realised its remarkable beauty and diversity.

Some 167 years ago, Charles Kingsley, the author of the underwater classic The WaterBabies (1863), gave vent to his fascination with the mysteries of underwater plant and animal life in his Glaucus, or The Wonders of the Shore (1855). He bewailed the riches of our coastal waters, which had 'to be seen, alas! rather by the imagination than by the eye....Often, standing on the shore at low tides, one has longed to walk on and under the waves... and see it all but for a moment. Only in the second half of the 20th century did scuba diving provide a fuller picture of what lay below, allowing systematic surveys to be undertaken, although much remains to be discovered.

The potential contribution of marine habitats to our response to the climate crisis continues to be undervalued. However, one coastal underwater habitat of which the importance is increasingly recognised is that of seagrass meadows or beds.

Seagrasses are the only flowering plants that are salt-tolerant and thus able to live in seawater and pollinate despite being submerged. The grasses grow up to 6ft long in the water of up to 12ft in depth that is clear enough for the sun's rays to penetrate it. Because they often form vast clusters, they can look like large underwater meadows.