Dec 23, 2008

Bumper Seagrass-Watch Newsletter rings in the New Grassy Year!

A bumper issue of the Seagrass Watch Newsletter marks the end of 2008 and the beginning of bigger things!
The cover of the Newsletter has this fabulous photo of seagrasses and reefs and fishies!

Of course I quickly flipped to the article about TeamSeagrass. And Siti has done a great round up of our Team efforts in her inimitable style...Since I got to provide the photos, Siti did not escape being 'sabo'. Marcus had a great photo of Siti in 'deep' trouble, literally, at Semakau. Haha.Read more about our past adventures and escapades. Including, "The Fastest Site to Monitor Award", "The Toughest Seagrasser Award", "Best Boatman Award" (hint: No Problem!), "The Wonky Tides Award", "The Funniest Gullible Moment Award" (won by Jerald), and more!

There are lots of other fascinating articles, including about rays. Not among our most favourite, but still awesome creatures.And also about dugongs! We all love dugongs!We wish we had dugongs like they do in Thailand!In the Philippines, they are asking questions we all should about our seagrasses.Seagrass-Watch plays a key role in helping to provide sound advice for the management of water quality on the Great Barrier Reef, and some of the key findings are presented in the Newsletter. With beautiful charts and all kinds of information.If we work really hard on our shores, we'll be able to do the same for our seagrasses and shores!Some monitoring sites have serious stuff like Light Loggers. Perhaps one day, we can have this too on our sites.

Here's an inspiring message from Len McKenzie, Principal Scientist, Seagrass-Watch Program Leader, Seagrass-Watch HQ

As 2008 comes to a close, it is an opportunity to look back and reflect on the achievements for the year.

The most significant achievement was Seagrass-Watch turning 10. Also was the completion of the fourth year of sampling for the Marine Monitoring Program. Seagrass-Watch plays a key role in helping to provide sound advice for the management of water quality on the Great Barrier Reef, and in this issue we present some of the key findings. Results of monitoring are presented firstly by the Natural Resource Management (NRM) regions identified in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. Within each NRM, seagrass habitats are further delineated into estuarine, coastal and reef habitats.

Also in this issue you'll find articles on recent efforts in Indonesia and the Comoros to map seagrass and establish monitoring. Read about the Restore-A-Scar program rescuing seagrass in the Florida Keys and groups in the Philippines rescuing seagrass by measuring its economic value.

Catch up with the Dhimurru Sea Rangers as they establish the Northern Territory’s first Seagrass-Watch monitoring site. You'll also find our regular updates from groups in Queensland and an Oscar style windup for the year with TeamSeagrass in Singapore. Included are also articles on education activities with schools in Torres Strait and you can even learn about rays.

As this is our biggest issue ever (24 pages), we hope you enjoy it. We have also provided both low and high resolution versions for you to choose from.

Everyone at Seagrass-Watch HQ wishes you all a happy New Year and safe holiday season.


Download the Seagrass Watch Newsletter and read all the articles for yourself!

Looking forward to a fantastic 2009!

Trips start on 10 Jan 09 so sign up now if you haven't already done so. All monitoring dates for 2009 are uploaded on the FAQ on this blog.

Want to join TeamSeagrass? Simply email these details
(a) your full name
(b) your age
(c) your email address
(d) your contact number
(e) any previous experience
to Ria at hello@wildsingapore.com, please put "TeamSeagrass" in your subject header.

Please read the FAQs on this blog for any questions you might have about the programme.

See you on the seagrass soon!

1 comment:

Christopher Taylor said...

I noticed the Philippines newsletter asking 'Do we have to wait for a catastrophe to realise the economic value of seagrass?' You're probably already aware that the collapse of seagrass populations in the North Atlantic in the 1930s due to disease caused the complete collapse of scallop fisheries on the east coast of America.