How Seychelles ocean plants could help tackle climate change
A study published in the Royal Society's flagship biological research journal says seagrasses capture carbon at a rate 35 times quicker than rainforests. If undisturbed, they can hold carbon for thousands of years, far longer than terrestrial plants. They thereby play the role of a natural carbon sink.
They account for 10% of the ocean's total burial of carbon, despite covering less than 0.2% of the ocean floor, a report in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience said.
But the total amount of seagrass is declining, creating the risk of this marine plant going extinct soon, according to researchers in the US.
At last month's COP27 climate conference in Egypt, activists and international bodies called for a greater drive to protect and use these nature-based solutions to combat climate change.
As a nation made up of 115 low-lying islands, Seychelles is extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change but around those islands, there is enough seagrass to fill hundreds of thousands of football pitches.
This year it became one of the first countries to accurately map all of its seagrass ecosystems nationwide.
Samples from its seagrasses and mangroves are being analysed to calculate how much carbon they store over time. Such carbon held in coastal wetlands and their sediment is referred to as "blue carbon" - as opposed to "green carbon" held in plants on land.