The Ocean Foundation says that anyone who wants to destroy sea grass can make up for it by simply writing a check. That money would go toward restoring seagrass beds elsewhere.
Kinda sounds like the carbon offsets programs to me, but this seagrass proposal has a bunch of red flags, including
doubts that restoring seagrass is worth the money, that the foundation is making claims they can’t back up, and the company they use brags of success that didn’t happen.
Read the Times’ full article, and take a look at the Ocean Foundation, and the company they would hire, Seagrass Recovery of Indian Rocks Beach (note they removed the questionable projects) to repair sea grass beds scarred by boaters.
For further information about seagrass, check out Australia’s Seagrass-Watch, the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, Bay Soundings magazine, the State of Florida’s DEP seagrasses page, Florida Seagrass Outreach Partnership, and of course, wikipedia: seagrass.
Photo credit: Paige Gill, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
