Blue Meridian Ocean Trust

Three ways we repair the Mediterranean

Seagrass replanted by hand, lost nets lifted out of the water, and fishing rules agreed with the people who fish. Each programme repairs a different kind of damage; together they let a coast recover and stay recovered.

Give to the work See the results

Seagrass restoration

640 hectares of seagrass replanted.

Seagrass meadows hold the Mediterranean sea floor together. Their roots bind the sand, their blades slow the swell before it reaches the beach, and young fish shelter in them until they are big enough for open water.

Where anchors and trawls have torn a meadow out, the bare floor does not heal quickly on its own. So our teams replant it by hand, shoot by shoot, on stretches of coast where the cause of the damage has been dealt with first.

  1. Find the scars. We map where meadows have been lost and why, so planting only happens where it can hold.

  2. Replant by hand. Divers set new shoots into the sea floor, square metre by square metre.

  3. Let it hold. Planting goes where the damage has stopped, so the work is not undone the next season.

Drawing of a sea floor in cross-section: an established seagrass meadow on the left and a square planting frame with new shoots on the right
  • 640ha

    replanted on sea floor that had lost its meadows.

Our own costing: 25 EUR replants 12 square metres of seagrass.

Ghost-net removal

212 tonnes of nets removed.

A net that is lost or abandoned does not stop working. It drifts or snags on the rocks and keeps catching fish, turtles and seabirds, long after anyone could haul it in. It smothers the sea floor it settles on, including the meadows we replant.

Our teams locate these ghost nets, cut them free and bring them ashore, so that stretch of water stops fishing for no one.

  1. Locate. Lost nets are found and marked where they have settled or snagged.

  2. Cut free. The net is released from rock and sea floor without tearing up what lives beneath it.

  3. Bring ashore. Every net is lifted out of the water and landed, and its weight is added to the running total.

Drawing of a work boat on the surface lifting a tangled ghost net up from the rocks on a line
  • 212t

    of ghost nets cut free and brought ashore so far.

Community fishing agreements

Recovery lasts when the people who fish a coast decide together how to share it.

A replanted meadow or a cleared reef only stays that way if the pressure that damaged it eases. That cannot be imposed from an office in Marseille. It has to be agreed on the quay, by the people whose living depends on the same water.

We sit down with fishing communities and help them write agreements on where, when and how to fish, so that restored meadows and recovering stocks can hold.

  1. Listen first. The conversation starts with the people who fish: what they see changing, and what they need from the sea.

  2. Agree the rules. Together we set out where, when and how fishing happens along that stretch of coast.

  3. Hold the gains. The agreement protects the meadows we replant and the water we clear of nets, season after season.

Drawing of two small fishing boats either side of a dashed line marking an agreed zone, with a protected seagrass meadow on the sea floor below
One of three programmes behind our 14 active projects across the Mediterranean.

Fund the next square metre

25 EUR replants 12 square metres of seagrass, and 91% of every euro you give reaches the field.

Give to the work Read the field reports