What treasures do you look for when walking on our local beaches? A brightly coloured shell that’s perfectly formed, a crab stranded from the rockpool hastily making its way back to safety or maybe an unknown creature from the deep?

Caroline Taylor, Landscapes Hills and Fleurieu Coast & Marine Project officer, is about to join those out on the water or getting sand between their toes on local southern ocean beaches.

They will be searching some special seedlings that only arrive on these shores for a few weeks. 

Tape weed seagrass fruits are released sometime from mid-December to January by local seagrass populations that form slicks on the surface of the water and drift ashore on incoming tides.

Working with fishing conservation charity OzFish, as well as seagrass scientists, local councils and beach and fishing communities, Landscapes Hills and Fleurieu aims to restore local seagrass meadows one sand bag at a time.

Learning from seagrass restoration projects on the Adelaide metro coast, it is bringing Seeds for Snapper - Seagrass restoration project to Encounter Bay and the Fleurieu coast.

Using simple sand bag deployment off the side of boats, bags sewn with seagrass seeds that have collected by volunteers will be cast overboard in selected locations within Encounter Bay.

Caroline Taylor says that as well as providing an important habitat for a range of marine species and nursery grounds for snapper, calamari, whiting and blue swimmer crabs, seagrasses help to stabilise sand and sediment on the ocean floor, helping to protect Australia’s shorelines from erosion and storms.

“They also store carbon and nutrients, which helps to improve water quality and clarity – a hectare of seagrass stores 35 times more carbon than a hectare of rainforest.

“The simple act of walking the local beach, taking the paddleboard, kayak or boat out for the day and collecting some seagrass seed, may just be the easiest way that you can help restore our local seagrass meadows for the future.”

Anyone interested in joining the seagrass restoration project can register online.

The project is supported by the Hills and Fleurieu Landscape Board, Ozfish, City of Victor Harbor, Yankalilla and Alexandrina Councils, with funding from the South Australian Government’s Landscape Priorities Fund and Boating Camping Fishing (BCF).