This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
This story has been co-published by Reasons to be Cheerful and the Outrider Foundation.
In late spring last year, Betty Hodgson, president of the Nova Scotia non-profit group Friends of the Pugwash Estuary, sat in the bow of a small boat with Kristina Boerder, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University. As they maneuvered the dingy through the shallow estuarine waters that flow undaunted into Canada’s Northumberland Strait, the pair leaned over the boat’s edge, scanning below the rippling surface for any sign of silvery-green ribboned blades of eelgrass. What they were really looking for was hope.
Living in shallow water along the intertidal coastlines and estuaries of more than 190 countries, eelgrass, or Zostera marina, is part of the seagrass family of plants and the most common seagrass species in Canada.
Despite covering just 0.2 percent of the sea floor, seagrasses account for an estimated 10 percent of all the carbon stored by the world’s oceans. They are also able to capture carbon from the atmosphere up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests such as the Amazon.
The post A ‘Secret Weapon’ for Fighting Climate Change Comes Surging Back appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
