The Sea Ranger Service has joined forces with the University of Groningen, Project Seagrass, CGG, the French Biodiversity Agency OFB and other European science institutes and conservation organisations in founding The Seagrass Consortium in 2022. The new collaboration was forged to develop effective large-scale seagrass restoration in Europe and beyond. When the Sea Ranger Service was founded in 2016, it was in part to make marine biodiversity restoration possible on a larger scale, by training and deploying young people as Sea Rangers to execute nature restoration.
In collaboration with the University of Groningen and Project Seagrass, which are both prominent science centres in the field of seagrass ecosystem restoration research, the collaboration builds upon seagrass restoration methodologies developed over a number of decades (starting in 1989). The Seagrass Consortium was been initiated to overcome bottlenecks to scaling seagrass restoration which involves Sea Rangers carrying out restoration in the field.
Our current seagrass restoration activities are taking place in the Eastern Scheldt (The Netherlands) and in Bassin d’Arcachon, (France). Funders include Patagonia, Turing Foundation, Fred Foundation and Purina Europe. Additional members in The Seagrass Consortium include IHCantabria (Spanish marine engineering institute) and CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) to develop future restoration efforts in Spain.