Oct 19, 2009

Pulau Semakau (18 Oct 09)

It's our LAST major monitoring for the year! And the Team is back out in booties on the vast vast seagrass meadows of Pulau Semakau!
Today we are joined by the Scouts! Led by seagrasser Tan Sijie, who is also very active with the Scouts. This is part of Sijie's SWA Discovery Workshop, of the Scouts of the World Award programme, to introduce local and international Scouts to Singapore's wild places and the work being done for them.

Oct 14, 2009

The secret to fighting climate change: Mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes

Just in time for Blog Action Day, this report on the vital role of seagrasses in fighting climate change! This is why we need to learn as much as we can about the seagrasses of Singapore. Bravo TeamSeagrass for contributing to this important task!

Extracts from "Marine plant life holds the secret to preventing global warming" Frank Pope, Times Online 14 Oct 09 and on wildsingapore news.

Although mangrove forests, salt marshes and seagrass beds together cover less than 1 per cent of the world’s seabed, they lock away well over half of all carbon to be buried in the ocean floor. They are estimated to store 1,650 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year — nearly half of global transport emissions — making them one of the most intense carbon sinks on Earth.

TeamSeagrass at Chek Jawa
TeamSeagrass monitoring seagrasses
with mangroves in the background, at Chek Jawa.

Oct 9, 2009

Seagrasses and dugongs - what happened at Prof Marsh's talk

Siti gave a great presentation about our seagrasses yesterday!
Photo from the Hantu Blog
Seagrass beds are worth about ten times more to the global economy than rain forests! Siti’s enthusiastic presentation made learning about seagrasses fun and fascinating!

Thanks to Debby Ng of the Hantu Bloggers who attended the event and posted about it!

Siti gave the presentation about our seagrasses, as a prelude to Prof Helene Marsh's talk on "Dugongs: Mysterious Mermaids or Meat?"

Read all about the event on the Hantu Blog.

Oct 5, 2009

8 Oct (Thu): "Dugongs: Mysterious Mermaids or Meat?"

Prof Helene Marsh is giving a talk about dugongs later this week!
Prof Marsh has led the global effort to study and protect dugongs for a long time.
And a prelude to Prof Marsh's talk is our very own Siti Maryam Yaakub. She will share about seagrasses of Singapore and the efforts being made to better understand manage these valuable ecosystems. Yay Siti!