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The Posidonia oceanica meadows reforestation off the Costa del Sinis, in the Sardinian West Coast, has begun. The program carried out under the water by the specialized team of the MEDSEA foundation aims at reforesting 300m2 of degraded seagrass beds area, about 6000 plants, in these days. 

The MedSeaGrass project, funded by Mava and implemented by the MEDSEA foundation, in collaboration with the Marine Protected Area "Sinis Peninsula - Mal di Ventre Island, is a new step of the larger-scale mission of the Sardinian Mediterranean Sea and Coast Foundation which foresees the planting of 1 million new Posidonia oceanica seedlings in the Mediterranean Sea by 2050. 

The MEDSEA campaign "A marine forest to save the planet" faces an ongoing crisis: throughout the Mediterranean, Posidonia oceanica is in regression: it is estimated that in the last 50 years, about 46% of the Mediterranean Sea Posidonia oceanica seagrass have regressed considerably by density or coverage, and that 20% have severely regressed. 

The data were also confirmed in Sardinia where, according to MEDSEA estimates, 14% of the 170 thousand hectares of Posidonia oceanica meadows in Sardinia may be damaged. 

"The degradation the Posidonia oceanica can be traced to numerous causes, almost exclusively of anthropogenic origin such as irregular mooring on the prairies, trawling, coastal development such as the construction of ports, dams, breakwater barriers", explains Francesca Frau, manager of the reforestation projects of oceanic posidonia in MEDSEA -. All these causes can modify currents and waves and, therefore, the transport of sediments that can cause the burial of the seagrass meadows and favor its regression or increase the turbidity of the waters, negatively affecting the photosynthesis capacity of the plant " 

To avoid the degradation of Posidonia oceanica seabeds due to incorrect anchoring, just a few months ago, again within the MedSeaGrass project, MEDSEA presented with the MPA, the Protected Marine Area of ​​the Sinis Peninsula, a solution created by the BlueSeeds company for manage online mooring in the Sardinian west Coast in pre-arranged buoys, 98, through the BlueMooring.org site, available in 4 languages. 

Posidonia oceanica is an endemic plant of the Mediterranean and habitat of settlement, shelter, nourishment, reproduction area and development of fish, capable of reducing the impact of waves linked to extreme weather conditions – which will be more and more frequent over the next decades - thus such as coastal erosion and to absorb large amounts of CO2, help mitigating the effect of climate change. 

Photo Andrea Alvito and MEDSEA