January 2025
In 2025 we FURTHER scaled up our SEAGRASS restoration activities AT ALL THREE SITES: the nationaal Park Oosterschelde, le Parc naturel marin du Bassin d’Arcachon AND l’Étang de Berre.
In January The Seagrass Consortium’s first meeting was hosted by GIPREB in the Étang de Berre. This was an opportunity for us to formally welcome GIPREB into The Seagrass Consortium, and to assess the overwintering condition of the 2024 seagrass transplants. GIPREBs final monitoring in October 2024 had shown there to be exceptional growth of the transplants between May-Oct 2024, and so the team were excited to see these results first hand.
This meeting was also an opportunity to discuss the need for gathering additional ‘baseline data’ for the Étang de Berre. We are seeing here a lagoon at the early stages of it likely a very positive trajectory of recovery. What data do we need to start collecting now (e.g. additional Carbon and Biodiversity data) in order to provide the evidence for this positive change in 10 or 20 years time?
February 2025
In February 2025 the Danish hosted a Wadden Sea Day
March 2025
In 2025 we FURTHER scaled up our SEAGRASS restoration activities AT ALL THREE SITES: the nationaal Park Oosterschelde, le Parc naturel marin du Bassin d’Arcachon AND l’Étang de Berre.
Beyond our work restoring seagrasses in the field we also seek to engage in conferences, seminars, and other public forums in order to engage with policymakers and contribute to policy discussions. In March we attended “When Nature Can Do the Job”, a science-policy event Brussels 19th March 2025.
March was also the month where we planted the seeds we collected in 2024 in the Nationaal Park Oosterschelde.
April 2025
On April 1st we initiated a mesocosm experiment in the laboratory at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen to explore the germination success of Zostera noltii seeds of different origin under future IPCC climate change scenarios.
On April 1-2 GIPREB and Rijksuniversiteit Groningen participated in the closing conference of the Life MarHa project in Marseille. Over the past 8 years, this project – coordinated by the Office français de la biodiversité and supported by 13 other national partners – has driven groundbreaking work to assess, restore, and protect marine habitats across France’s Natura 2000 sites.
Follow Life MarHa, from the 7-11 April 2025, The Seagrass Consortium organised the 2nd European Seagrass Restoration Workshop at the Palais des Congrès d’Arcachon. This event was hosted by le Parc naturel marin du Bassin d’Arcachon and brought together 211 delegates from 17 European nations, as well as additional delegates from the USA, Australia and South Africa.
May 2025
In May 2025 staff from Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, IHCantabria and IMEDEA-CSIC-UIB joined GIPREB and volunteers in the field to conduct research into both the existing carbon stock and the sediment microbiome at the restoration site of Batidou. Together we effected the international ‘Seagrass Hug’ experiment at the site.
June 2025
Continuing our efforts to engage the wider marine restoration community through conferences, seminars, and other public forums Dr Richard Lilley from Rijksuniversiteit Groningen chaired a session on the ‘Advances in seascape restoration practice’ at Seascape Symposium II at ZSL in London.
This was followed by GIPREB, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and Project Seagrass‘s attending at the United Nations Ocean Conference 3 in Nice, France.
July 2025
In July 2025 Project Seagrass again hosted The Seagrass Consortium, this time on the Isle of Wight to share their work as part of the Solent Seascape Project.
August 2025
August was a busy month in le Parc naturel marin du Bassin d’Arcachon for the marine park agents, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and the Sea Ranger Service. Ongoing monitoring of the wider marine system, but also of the ‘Seagrass Hugs’ the restoration sites. In August we also visited the Lycée de la mer Gujan to explore the potential for growing seagrasses in semi-confined conditions in one of their aquaculture ponds.
September 2025
On September 1st the mesocosm experiment in the laboratory at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen that exploring the germination success of Zostera noltii seeds of different origin under future IPCC climate change scenarios finished. Maite Vogel began her anaysis of the results.
Following this the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) held an in-person marine restoration training event on September 9–10, 2025, in Dublin, Ireland, at the Maldron Hotel Merrion Road. The training focused on “Tools for Success in Marine Ecosystem Restoration,” in collaboration with the Mission Ocean project CLIMAREST, and was co-hosted by the University of Galway. Dr Richard Lilley was invited to deliver training sessions on the Monitoring and Evaluation of MER projects and the use of the SER Ecological Recovery Wheel.
Dr Richard Lilley was also delivered a talk on the work of the BiodivRestore Knowledge Hub at the European Biodiversity Partnerships (Biodiversa+) Midterm Conference in Leiden, Netherlands.
October 2025
In October 2025 we returned to where it all began in Santander, Spain.
The final monitoring week of the season in the Étang de Berre.
The final transplanting and monitroing week of the season in the Bassin d’Arcachon.
November 2025
In November 2025 we returned to where it all began in Santander, Spain.
December 2025
In October 2025 we returned to where it all began in Santander, Spain.
