This year’s UK Seagrass Symposium, set to welcome over 200 delegates to the Welsh Capital, is hosted by Project Seagrass - which has ongoing work in Dale and Laugharne.
Registration for the 2025 UK Seagrass Symposium will open later this month. Between November 11 and 13, 2025, scientists, conservation professionals, practitioners, and community groups from across the UK will converge in Cardiff for the event.
Seagrass meadows support communities across the globe, keeping our oceans healthy, producing oxygen, trapping carbon and providing a rich habitat for marine life. Symposium attendees will participate in a programme of inspiring talks from keynote speakers, panel discussions, and workshops led by some of the world’s leading seagrass scientists.
The event, which will take place at Techniquest in Cardiff Bay and is sponsored by the Crown Estate, will drive forward discussions and actions to protect and restore UK seagrass, alongside providing an invaluable networking opportunity for attendees to share knowledge on seagrass science, policy, and management.
Dr Leanne Cullen-Unsworth, CEO of Project Seagrass and Chair of Seagrass Network Cymru said: “I’m delighted to be bringing this conference to Wales in 2025. This is an opportunity to connect science, policy, and action by bringing together those working on seagrass from across the UK.
“Interest in seagrass has grown substantially in the past few years and this is a forum to share and enhance our collective knowledge to advance towards a healthy and connected UK seascape.”
The first attempt to restore UK seagrass meadows on a large scale was in Dale, Pembrokeshire, where a pilot study aimed to expand seagrass restoration to a two-hectare area - that’s approximately the size of two rugby pitches. Over a million seeds were planted across the site in an initiative that harnessed years of experimentation with growing methods. Following the completion of the initial planting programme, Project Seagrass now undertakes regular monitoring at the site to assess changes to the seagrass plants as the meadow establishes as well as planting more seagrass seeds to help ‘top-up’ the existing seagrass.
In 2021, Project Seagrass, Salix River and Wetland Services, and Swansea University collaborated to create the seagrass nursery at an area of land on a working ragworm farm between Laugharne and Pendine in West Carmarthenshire.
Seagrass meadows play a critical role in keeping our oceans healthy and stocked with food and are important allies to tackle the global climate and biodiversity crises. Yet the current condition of seagrass in the UK is generally poor due to multiple pressures, including poor water quality, and direct physical damage from moorings and anchors with extensive loss having occurred since the 19th Century.
The collective action and collaboration fostered by the UKSS is key to addressing the challenges that UK seagrass currently faces.
Dr Benjamin Jones, 2022-24 President of World Seagrass Association said: “Given the increasing challenges that seagrass meadows globally face, I see this UK Seagrass Symposium as a crucial opportunity to build a diverse, equitable, and collaborative UK seagrass community to tackle seagrass decline. We need to both learn from others and share our successes and failures; we simply do not have the time to wait, we need to collaborate, and we need to collaborate now.”
A UKSS hosted in the Welsh Capital is fitting following the Welsh Government’s endorsement of a National Seagrass Action Plan for Wales earlier this year. The Plan presents a blueprint for action over the next five years to achieve a vision where Welsh seagrass meadows are supporting marine biodiversity, vibrant communities, a sustainable economy, and making a valuable contribution to the climate emergency response.
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