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Ocean-Human Health Connection: Why This Disappearing Habitat Matters to You · How To Protect The Ocean

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  This hidden ocean habitat is doing more for you than you think.
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  Most people think of forests when they think about how nature is protecting us.
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  But just beneath the surface of the ocean, just in the coastal waters, there's a
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  hidden meadow that quietly cleans the water we swim in, protects shorelines from
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  storms, supports the seafood that we eat, and even plays a role in human health.
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  The problem is that most of us never see it.
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  And because we don't see it, it's disappearing fast.
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  In this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast, I'm gonna break down
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  why this overlooked ocean habitat matters to your daily life, how it connects the
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  health of the Ocean to human wellbeing, and what we stand to lose if these
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  underwater meadows continue to vanish.
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  We're gonna talk about that on today's episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  There's a lot to cover, so let's start the show.
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  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, Marine biologist and science communicator
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  here to tell you what's happening with the ocean, how you could speak up for
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  the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
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  On today's episode, we're gonna be talking about seagrass meadows and
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  how the fact that like we need how critical seagrass meadows are to us.
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  They are essential infrastructure for resilient coastlines,
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  for resilient societies.
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  They are part of the ocean's foundational ecosystems alongside kelp forests, oyster
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  reefs, and salt marshes, and often not
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  we see these meadows disappearing.
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  But the question really is, is what are seagrasses?
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  or you're probably telling me I do.
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  Why are you so focused on seagrass meadows?
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  Like why do you wanna start a podcast that's focused on
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  sea meadows?
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  Why are you talking about this episode and all the other
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  episodes about seagrass meadows?
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  It's 'cause they're vital.
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  They're underwater flowering plants that are found in coastal waters.
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  They create these underwater meadows that support complex food webs.
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  They are a core piece of human health.
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  They contribute to cleaner coastal waters by filtering out nutrients from water.
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  I just want you to imagine this.
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  If you have a tank, like a, you know, just an aquarium.
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  And you put it full of muddy water, so there's a lot of little particles
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  that are in the water, right?
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  Whether it be nutrients, whether it be algae, whether it be just like these
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  little sediments, it's just murky water.
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  What you're gonna find after a while is when you put those plants
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  in, they filter out that water.
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  That water becomes cleaner if you have the right system in there.
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  And especially when you have a coastal system where you have seagrass meadows
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  in it, they're usually found at the mouths of river systems, right?
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  So they're, you know, you get a freshwater river come down.
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  It mixes with the salt water.
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  Out in the coastlines where the fresh water meets the salt water and
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  where it becomes really salty, you'll start to see these flowering plants.
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  You'll start to see seagrasses.
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  A lot of us will think, hey.
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  That's seaweed.
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  It's not seaweed.
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  It's seagrasses.
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  These meadows are filtering out anything that comes into this
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  and some for good, some for bad.
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  It'll filter out all the nutrients, it'll take in those nutrients and
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  allow it to grow to provide that structure, that security around
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  the seagrass meadow within the bay.
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  What happens is the roots are underneath the sand.
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  So it'll solidify the sand, so there'll less erosion around the sand.
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  It'll provide a habitat, a structure, a home, if you will, for a lot of tiny
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  organisms from microscopic all the way to fish, small juvenile fish, young
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  fish, larval fish larval invertebrates.
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  And it provides this protection where they can actually sit there, eat a lot
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  of things and allow themselves to grow before they become adults and stay there.
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  Or they go off to a different habitat like a coral reef, maybe even a mangrove,
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  maybe somewhere else on the seagrass meadow or a different seagrass meadow.
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  They provide so much.
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  So they provide food for us.
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  They filter out water.
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  They provide that structure to prevent erosion along an important coastline.
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  Yet we don't really see what's happening to them.
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  And there's this article that I found in the conversation.
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  And the article was really well written.
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  I'll link to it in the show notes.
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  But it basically talks about the importance within this one health ocean
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  concept, which is tying environmental health directly to human wellbeing.
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  We've seen this before, but it was more of mental health with Dr.
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  Wallace J Nichols book, Blue Mind.
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  These are concepts that are really important for you and I to understand.
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  Because without the health of the ocean systems, freshwater systems,
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  wild systems, whether it's on land in freshwater or in marine systems like
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  oceans, we don't have a healthy planet.
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  We do not have like human health.
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  Our human health degrades.
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  And because seagrass supports young fish invertebrates, it helps sustains
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  fisheries and that are critical for food, security, and coastal economies.
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  Maybe not for you who are listening to this.
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  A lot of my listeners are in the US or in Canada, or in the UK or, in Australia.
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  Many English speaking countries and other countries.
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  And it may not directly relate to you, but many of the coastal systems
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  anybody who lives along coastline will depend on the health of the systems.
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  The seafood that they use to feed people, the seafood that they
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  use to sell to make a living.
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  That seafood that we often eat is gonna be very important that you have
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  a healthy seagrass meadow in that area, a healthy coastal ecosystem.
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  So today we're focusing o oyster reefs, we can focus on salt marshes, we can
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  focus on mudflats and kelp forests.
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  These systems are very important, not only for security, but for our food security.
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  Not only just a physical coastline security, but our food security.
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  It's really, really important.
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  Just in the very basic focus of this episode, the fact that seagrass
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  contributes to cleaner coastal waters by filtering nutrients from water,
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  it just improves coastal health.
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  It improves the ability to go swimming, the ability to get great seafood, the
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  ability to just do a bunch of things.
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  It has sediment stabilization, water quality regulation, climate regulation.
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  It stores carbon and mitigates storm impacts.
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  So the fact that you have a healthy system, a seagrass system, and you get
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  increased storm surges from hurricanes or typhoons, or cyclones, the seagrasses
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  will actually help protect the quality of the security of the whole coastline.
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  If you have a healthy system, whether it be coral reefs, seagrasses, mangroves,
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  all of it, you'll actually be safer from like a long term perspective.
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  The short term you might get some more damage.
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  But even in areas that had in the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean areas that had
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  intact coastal habitats that were healthy, that were intact, that less damage and
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  less deaths than areas that did not have good coastal habitat health quality.
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  It's a situation where, especially in these days when we have just
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  climate issues in general and we're having storm surges come up on the
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  beach or storm surges coming up on our streets, on our coastlines, it's
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  important that we have these physical structures in there to dissipate the
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  energy, to just reduce that energy of the wave as it goes over the habitat.
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  We're also talking about the fact that seagrass meadows actually absorb carbon
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  and they put it in the sediments.
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  They're like a carbon sink.
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  And so they store carbon through photosynthesis, so we don't have
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  as much carbon into the atmosphere.
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  Now you're probably like, well, forest do the same thing, Andrew.
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  Why can't we do the same thing with forest?
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  Sure, we can do the same thing with forest, but the fact that seagrass
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  meadows will absorb it four to 10 times more than a tree on land.
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  Now imagine that.
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  We have the ability to scale up the amount of absorption of carbon just
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  through an ocean ecosystem that we depend on, that we depend on for food, water
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  clarity, and health, and coastal security.
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  Imagine the fact that we could restore these systems and or protect them just
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  by paying more attention to them.
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  It's a huge, huge aspect.
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  Now here's the thing.
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  A lot of the times we're seeing damage to seagrasses, whether it be through boat.
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  Like boats coming in and putting their anchors over it.
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  Whether we're seeing a lot of bad water quality that are
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  coming down from the rivers.
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  For instance, in Florida.
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  We're seeing a lot of bad water quality that are coming down, a lot
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  of nutrients that are coming down where it's too many nutrients for
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  the seagrass systems to absorb, and they're causing a lot of algal mats.
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  Those algal mats sink to the bottom and they just suffocate the seagrasses
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  to the point now where not only are we seeing a lot of deaths along the
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  side due to red tide, but also the fact that we just don't have good
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  water quality along the coastlines.
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  We're also seeing a reduction in manatee populations because they can't find
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  seagrass to feed on cause that's their primary food source are seagrass meadows.
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  So if we don't have seagrass meadows, we don't have these lovely manatees
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  that regulate the seagrass meadows.
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  It's a negative feedback loop where you have poor water quality coming down.
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  Algal blooms that are created because of too many nutrients, right?
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  And warmer waters.
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  And then those nutrients sink to the bottom.
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  They suffocate the seagrasses, not as many seagrasses.
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  Then you get less productive coastlines.
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  You get less clear, water quality and you're not gonna have anything eat off
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  of like larger animals like manatees.
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  And so now all of a sudden you're just having this system that just
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  continues to negatively feed back into the system and you're just
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  like, we lose our seagrass meadows.
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  It's as simple as that.
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  In Florida, the manatees are starving so much that they're actually having
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  to feed them lettuce all the time.
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  It just happens all the time.
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  It's like a cascading effect for coastal ecosystems and services that we depend on.
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  That's what we gotta avoid.
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  So by keeping the systems healthy, by monitoring them, by acknowledging that
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  they're there, and by making sure nothing happens to them and having people look
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  out for them, then we can all of a sudden, we can just make sure that these
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  seagrass meadows are in good condition.
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  But the problem is, is we don't have people monitoring them
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  and because a lot of times we just don't know where they are.
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  What type of species are there?
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  Are they the right species that are there?
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  Are there any invasive species?
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  What's happening to our system?
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  Monitoring programs need to be done.
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  We have organizations like Project Seagrass who are working with Citizen
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  scientist to identify seagrass meadows with their Seagrass spotter app, where
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  you can actually go in and contribute to this app where you can say, Hey,
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  by the way, there's a seagrass meadow just over here down in Florida, or
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  down in California, or over in British Columbia, or in the UK somewhere.
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  And we have all these systems and we're mapping them out and
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  this is the distribution of them.
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  So we can have all of that.
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  So the fact is, is we have to start monitoring.
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  We have to start acknowledging that these systems are there and
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  making sure that they're intact.
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  And if they're not intact, or if you see them degradating, then all of a sudden
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  we're like, okay, let's put in a plan to make sure we protect them 'cause
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  that's the cheapest way of doing things.
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  And also let's make sure we restore seagrasses where we need them and
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  where they were before so that we can ensure that they're done properly.
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  And we'll talk about restoration because there's a lot to go into
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  it, a lot of science to go into it.
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  But that's something that has to be done afterwards.
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  And it's very, very expensive to do it.
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  But we see success with it.
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  We are seeing really great success with it.
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  We wanna make sure that our seagrass habitats are intact,
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  that we don't ignore them.
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  We're not just looking for coral reefs, we're not looking
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  to just restore coral reefs.
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  Coral reefs get a lot of attention as they should.
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  They are very important systems.
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  But seagrass systems are just as important.
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  Maybe you could make the argument, if not more, because a lot of the larva
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  fish that grow up in a seagrass meadow will go over to a coral reef and make
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  sure that it's in good health as well.
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  There's a lot to know within the ocean.
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  There's a lot to protect within the ocean.
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  But if we protect these systems, and this system goes from really,
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  really warm areas to temperate areas.
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  It is very important to do that.
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  all of a sudden we start to get better water quality, better seafood, and better
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  protection essentially for our coastlines.
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  So I wanna make sure that you know that I want to bring that about.
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  There's the article in the conversation by I believe it was Benjamin Jones
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  and he had a coauthor as well.
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  You can read that if you click on the links below in the description.
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  But if you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear your comments.
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  If you're watching this on YouTube, let me know in the comments below.
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  If you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app, you can go
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  to speak up for blue.com/feedback.
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  Let me know what you think there.
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  If you're watching this on an app that allows for comments, please let me know
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  or like put your comments in there.
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  I think Spotify allows it.
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  I wish more podcast apps would allow it.
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  Any way you want to connect with me, you can do so.
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  So please figure it out and find a way to connect with me and I'd be
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  more than happy to connect with you.
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  And that's it for today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nord Strong and free.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.