A comprehensive Natural England report on the impact of the nation’s landscape on carbon storage and sequestration, has found that peatlands and native woodlands are habitats which have the greatest capacity to store carbon, but that many others, including coastal and marine habitats such as saltmarsh and seagrass meadows have a significant role to play a role in helping the UK hit net zero by 2050.  Saltmarshes can be highly effective carbon stores, as well as helping coasts adapt to future climate change.  Restoration of seagrass meadows also has potential to capture carbon from the atmosphere in its vegetation, and also trap carbon from elsewhere in sediments.  One hectare of saltmarsh each year buries the carbon equivalent of an average car’s annual carbon emissions.  Click here.

Hot on the heels of the seagrass restoration initiative in Pembrokeshire, South Wales, reported last week, another project is underway, this one in Plymouth Sound. The four-year project, being carried out by the Ocean Conservation Trust as part of the LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES project led by Natural England, aims to plant a total of eight hectares of seagrass meadows – four each in Plymouth Sound and the Solent Maritime Special Area of Conservation.