Ocean-Human Health Connection: Why This Disappearing Habitat Matters to You

0:00 This hidden ocean habitat is doing more for you than you think. Most people think of forests when they think about how nature is protecting us. But just beneath the surface of the ocean, just in the coastal waters, there's a hidden meadow that quietly cleans the water we swim in, protects shorelines from storms, supports the seafood that we eat, and even plays a role in human health. The problem is that most of us never see it. And because we don't see it, it's disappearing fast. In this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast, I'm gonna break down why this overlooked ocean habitat matters to your daily life, how it connects the health of the Ocean to human wellbeing, and what we stand to lose if these underwater meadows continue to vanish.

0:42 We're gonna talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. There's a lot to cover, so let's start the show. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, Marine biologist and science communicator here to tell you what's happening with the ocean, how you could speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. On today's episode, we're gonna be talking about seagrass meadows and how the fact that like we need how critical seagrass meadows are to us. They are essential infrastructure for resilient coastlines, for resilient societies. They are part of the ocean's foundational ecosystems alongside kelp forests, oyster reefs, and salt marshes, and often not we see these meadows disappearing.

1:27 But the question really is, is what are seagrasses? or you're probably telling me I do. Why are you so focused on seagrass meadows? Like why do you wanna start a podcast that's focused on sea meadows? Why are you talking about this episode and all the other episodes about seagrass meadows? It's 'cause they're vital. They're underwater flowering plants that are found in coastal waters. They create these underwater meadows that support complex food webs. They are a core piece of human health. They contribute to cleaner coastal waters by filtering out nutrients from water. I just want you to imagine this. If you have a tank, like a, you know, just an aquarium. And you put it full of muddy water, so there's a lot of little particles that are in the water, right?

2:10 Whether it be nutrients, whether it be algae, whether it be just like these little sediments, it's just murky water. What you're gonna find after a while is when you put those plants in, they filter out that water. That water becomes cleaner if you have the right system in there. And especially when you have a coastal system where you have seagrass meadows in it, they're usually found at the mouths of river systems, right? So they're, you know, you get a freshwater river come down. It mixes with the salt water. Out in the coastlines where the fresh water meets the salt water and where it becomes really salty, you'll start to see these flowering plants. You'll start to see seagrasses. A lot of us will think, hey. That's seaweed. It's not seaweed. It's seagrasses. These meadows are filtering out anything that comes into this and some for good, some for bad.

2:55 It'll filter out all the nutrients, it'll take in those nutrients and allow it to grow to provide that structure, that security around the seagrass meadow within the bay. What happens is the roots are underneath the sand. So it'll solidify the sand, so there'll less erosion around the sand. It'll provide a habitat, a structure, a home, if you will, for a lot of tiny organisms from microscopic all the way to fish, small juvenile fish, young fish, larval fish larval invertebrates. And it provides this protection where they can actually sit there, eat a lot of things and allow themselves to grow before they become adults and stay there. Or they go off to a different habitat like a coral reef, maybe even a mangrove, maybe somewhere else on the seagrass meadow or a different seagrass meadow.

3:41 They provide so much. So they provide food for us. They filter out water. They provide that structure to prevent erosion along an important coastline. Yet we don't really see what's happening to them. And there's this article that I found in the conversation. And the article was really well written. I'll link to it in the show notes. But it basically talks about the importance within this one health ocean concept, which is tying environmental health directly to human wellbeing. We've seen this before, but it was more of mental health with Dr. Wallace J Nichols book, Blue Mind. These are concepts that are really important for you and I to understand. Because without the health of the ocean systems, freshwater systems, wild systems, whether it's on land in freshwater or in marine systems like oceans, we don't have a healthy planet.

4:30 We do not have like human health. Our human health degrades. And because seagrass supports young fish invertebrates, it helps sustains fisheries and that are critical for food, security, and coastal economies. Maybe not for you who are listening to this. A lot of my listeners are in the US or in Canada, or in the UK or, in Australia. Many English speaking countries and other countries. And it may not directly relate to you, but many of the coastal systems anybody who lives along coastline will depend on the health of the systems. The seafood that they use to feed people, the seafood that they use to sell to make a living. That seafood that we often eat is gonna be very important that you have a healthy seagrass meadow in that area, a healthy coastal ecosystem.

5:15 So today we're focusing o oyster reefs, we can focus on salt marshes, we can focus on mudflats and kelp forests. These systems are very important, not only for security, but for our food security. Not only just a physical coastline security, but our food security. It's really, really important. Just in the very basic focus of this episode, the fact that seagrass contributes to cleaner coastal waters by filtering nutrients from water, it just improves coastal health. It improves the ability to go swimming, the ability to get great seafood, the ability to just do a bunch of things. It has sediment stabilization, water quality regulation, climate regulation. It stores carbon and mitigates storm impacts.

5:56 So the fact that you have a healthy system, a seagrass system, and you get increased storm surges from hurricanes or typhoons, or cyclones, the seagrasses will actually help protect the quality of the security of the whole coastline. If you have a healthy system, whether it be coral reefs, seagrasses, mangroves, all of it, you'll actually be safer from like a long term perspective. The short term you might get some more damage. But even in areas that had in the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean areas that had intact coastal habitats that were healthy, that were intact, that less damage and less deaths than areas that did not have good coastal habitat health quality.

6:37 It's a situation where, especially in these days when we have just climate issues in general and we're having storm surges come up on the beach or storm surges coming up on our streets, on our coastlines, it's important that we have these physical structures in there to dissipate the energy, to just reduce that energy of the wave as it goes over the habitat. We're also talking about the fact that seagrass meadows actually absorb carbon and they put it in the sediments. They're like a carbon sink. And so they store carbon through photosynthesis, so we don't have as much carbon into the atmosphere. Now you're probably like, well, forest do the same thing, Andrew. Why can't we do the same thing with forest? Sure, we can do the same thing with forest, but the fact that seagrass meadows will absorb it four to 10 times more than a tree on land. Now imagine that.

7:18 We have the ability to scale up the amount of absorption of carbon just through an ocean ecosystem that we depend on, that we depend on for food, water clarity, and health, and coastal security. Imagine the fact that we could restore these systems and or protect them just by paying more attention to them. It's a huge, huge aspect. Now here's the thing. A lot of the times we're seeing damage to seagrasses, whether it be through boat. Like boats coming in and putting their anchors over it. Whether we're seeing a lot of bad water quality that are coming down from the rivers. For instance, in Florida. We're seeing a lot of bad water quality that are coming down, a lot of nutrients that are coming down where it's too many nutrients for the seagrass systems to absorb, and they're causing a lot of algal mats.

8:00 Those algal mats sink to the bottom and they just suffocate the seagrasses to the point now where not only are we seeing a lot of deaths along the side due to red tide, but also the fact that we just don't have good water quality along the coastlines. We're also seeing a reduction in manatee populations because they can't find seagrass to feed on cause that's their primary food source are seagrass meadows. So if we don't have seagrass meadows, we don't have these lovely manatees that regulate the seagrass meadows. It's a negative feedback loop where you have poor water quality coming down. Algal blooms that are created because of too many nutrients, right? And warmer waters. And then those nutrients sink to the bottom. They suffocate the seagrasses, not as many seagrasses. Then you get less productive coastlines.

8:42 You get less clear, water quality and you're not gonna have anything eat off of like larger animals like manatees. And so now all of a sudden you're just having this system that just continues to negatively feed back into the system and you're just like, we lose our seagrass meadows. It's as simple as that. In Florida, the manatees are starving so much that they're actually having to feed them lettuce all the time. It just happens all the time. It's like a cascading effect for coastal ecosystems and services that we depend on. That's what we gotta avoid. So by keeping the systems healthy, by monitoring them, by acknowledging that they're there, and by making sure nothing happens to them and having people look out for them, then we can all of a sudden, we can just make sure that these seagrass meadows are in good condition.

9:24 But the problem is, is we don't have people monitoring them and because a lot of times we just don't know where they are. What type of species are there? Are they the right species that are there? Are there any invasive species? What's happening to our system? Monitoring programs need to be done. We have organizations like Project Seagrass who are working with Citizen scientist to identify seagrass meadows with their Seagrass spotter app, where you can actually go in and contribute to this app where you can say, Hey, by the way, there's a seagrass meadow just over here down in Florida, or down in California, or over in British Columbia, or in the UK somewhere. And we have all these systems and we're mapping them out and this is the distribution of them. So we can have all of that. So the fact is, is we have to start monitoring.

10:06 We have to start acknowledging that these systems are there and making sure that they're intact. And if they're not intact, or if you see them degradating, then all of a sudden we're like, okay, let's put in a plan to make sure we protect them 'cause that's the cheapest way of doing things. And also let's make sure we restore seagrasses where we need them and where they were before so that we can ensure that they're done properly. And we'll talk about restoration because there's a lot to go into it, a lot of science to go into it. But that's something that has to be done afterwards. And it's very, very expensive to do it. But we see success with it. We are seeing really great success with it. We wanna make sure that our seagrass habitats are intact, that we don't ignore them. We're not just looking for coral reefs, we're not looking to just restore coral reefs. Coral reefs get a lot of attention as they should.

10:46 They are very important systems. But seagrass systems are just as important. Maybe you could make the argument, if not more, because a lot of the larva fish that grow up in a seagrass meadow will go over to a coral reef and make sure that it's in good health as well. There's a lot to know within the ocean. There's a lot to protect within the ocean. But if we protect these systems, and this system goes from really, really warm areas to temperate areas. It is very important to do that. all of a sudden we start to get better water quality, better seafood, and better protection essentially for our coastlines. So I wanna make sure that you know that I want to bring that about. There's the article in the conversation by I believe it was Benjamin Jones and he had a coauthor as well.

11:26 You can read that if you click on the links below in the description. But if you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear your comments. If you're watching this on YouTube, let me know in the comments below. If you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app, you can go to speak up for blue.com/feedback. Let me know what you think there. If you're watching this on an app that allows for comments, please let me know or like put your comments in there. I think Spotify allows it. I wish more podcast apps would allow it. Any way you want to connect with me, you can do so. So please figure it out and find a way to connect with me and I'd be more than happy to connect with you. And that's it for today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nord Strong and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.