Seagrass is a key store of carbon and producer of oxygen—critical to slowing the devastating impacts of climate change—but, just as human actions elsewhere are devastating forests of trees on land, scientists warn that human activity is driving the grass under the sea to destruction at speed
Tunisian marine biologist Yassine Ramzi Sghaier inspects a marine plant, from the Posidonia genus, in the capital Tunis on March 14, 2022. Under the Mediterranean waters off Tunisia, gently-waving green seagrass meadows provide vital marine habitats for the fishing fleets and an erosion buffer for the beaches. (Credit: FETHI BELAID / AFP)
​Monastir, Tunisia: Under the Mediterranean waters off Tunisia, gently waving green seagrass meadows provide vital marine habitats for the fishing fleets and an erosion buffer for the beaches the tourism industry depends on.
Even more importantly, seagrass is such a key store of carbon and producer of oxygen— critical to slowing the devastating impacts of climate change—that the Mediterranean Wetlands Initiative (MedWet) calls it "the lungs" of the sea.
But, just as human actions elsewhere are devastating forests of trees on land, scientists warn that human activity is driving the grass under the sea to destruction at speed—with dire environmental and economic impacts.
Named Posidonia oceanica after the Greek god of the sea Poseidon, seagrass spans the Mediterranean seabed from Cyprus to Spain, sucking in carbon and curbing water acidity.