SeaGrow Coastal Marine Ecosystems Research Centre
CQUniversity Coastal Marine Ecosystems Research Centre Seagrass Nursery on the Gladstone marina, is the first stage of the $15 million CMERC redevelopment which has been generously funded by the Australian Federal Government to develop evidence-based, innovative research solutions to shape sustainable coastal futures.
The facility supports the Reef 2050 Plan objective of ‘Resilient seagrass meadows that maintain condition’.
It is the world’s largest purpose-built seagrass restoration nursery, serving as a research and development hub for both national and international seagrass restoration efforts supported by nurseries, but also providing restoration propagules for larger scale seagrass restoration in the region. The partnerships with Traditional Owners involved in seagrass restoration across the GBR have already grown and the nursery is co-run with Port Curtis Coral Coast Indigenous Sea Rangers that have been training with CMERC over the past two years.
SeaGrow, is a dedicated seagrass nursery facility in Central Queensland. This innovative facility will feature a state-of-the-art aquaria system equipped with specialized grow-out, flowering, and seed capture components designed to cultivate seagrass propagules for large-scale restoration initiatives.
Facility Design and Sustainability
- Capacity: 18,000L nursery system
- Components: Designed for grow-out, flowering, and seed capture
- Sustainability: Incorporates solar energy, water filtration, and sustainable operational procedures
Project Goals
Infrastructure Development
Construct a fully functional seagrass nursery in collaboration with Traditional Owners and partners, supplying seeds for successful restoration trials.
Protocol Establishment
Develop and establish protocols for seagrass cultivation, including best practice guidelines for operations and community engagement through research and stakeholder consultations.
Training Program
Create a training initiative in partnership with an Indigenous-owned enterprise to ensure the sustainable operation of SeaGrow.
Restoration Efforts
Facilitate the recovery of 10 hectares of degraded seagrass meadows through seed-based enhancement techniques.
Ecosystem Assessment
Evaluate changes in seagrass cover and the related shifts in ecosystem services to better understand the benefits of seagrass.
Community Impact
With the establishment of SeaGrow and its propagation protocols, this project will empower the community with the resources and knowledge necessary to support port managers in restoring lost seagrass and enhancing recovery in degraded meadows. It aims to offset development impacts, accelerate the growth of restoration cultivation industries, and strengthen Traditional Owners’ capacity in sea country habitat restoration.
Broader Benefits
The anticipated outcomes include a healthier marine ecosystem, increased blue carbon capture, long-term job creation in restoration cultivation, and enhanced collaboration between Traditional Owners and the environmental restoration sector.
Headquartered on the shoreline of the Gladstone marina, CMERC is the only coastal and marine research facility in Central Queensland and features world-class research equipment and laboratories with access to cutting-edge analytical capabilities.
Transcript
[Music]
Emma Jackosn, Director CMERC: So I'm really excited to say that we're launching our new Seagrass Nursery, which one of the largest in the world purpose built for seagrass restoration. And it's a nice nice day for it, but it's been a long time coming. So we've been doing seagrass restoration for nearly a decade now developed the techniques, and now brought all the ideas from our own pilots, and ones around the world, to create this new facility. Well seagrass is a really important part of the reef ecosystem so it filters all sorts of nutrients and sediment off the land, it's a habitat for fish, it's basically direct food for things like dugongs and turtles, but it's also in trouble in a lot of areas but now you know building these seagrass nurseries is a really important part of being able to support restoration of these important habitats.
So this facility is really about holding flowers that we collect with citizen science groups out in the field and harvest the seeds from, but also growing our own having adult stock here that can actually produce seeds and using some of those sort of latest sort of research to actually increase the the production of those seeds so that we've got enough material to do larger scale restoration.
But beyond that it's also a hub for basically research and sharing these ideas with other people both across Australia but also across the world.
We're part of a global Seagrass Nursery Network which means that you know we share ideas with them they share ideas with us and we can really start to get seagrass restorations to the scale that it needs to be at. It's great that the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and the Coles Group through the blue carbon program are supporting what really is like the infrastructure not just to do you know one or two projects but to do the training the research and the trials for scaling up seagrass restoration across the whole great barer reef.
Sarah Ireland, Chief of Communication & Growth, Great Barrier Reef Foundation: What this enables us to do is reach seagrass restoration on a meadow level scale increasing the resilience to climate change and leveraging the reef carbon sequestering potential. We are seeing increased frequency and size andscale of storms floods and Cyclones andthis impacts the health of our seagrass meadows. the Great Barrier Reef seagrass ecosystem is the largest globally and that means that it has it's able to store 400 million tons of carbon this is the equivalent in weight to eight Sydney Harbor Bridges. So what this enables us to do is look at how we can look at the success of this Nursery to scale Mmarine seagrass restoration globally.
Anna Stewart, Head of Sustainability, Governance & Engagement, Coles Group: Really just makes sense for us as an organization with a focus on sustainability on climate changen addressing the impacts of climate change to partner with GBRF on this really important project. We know our customers, our team members, and other stakeholders really care about the environment,, really care about the iconic Great Barrier Reef and I think we're also just really keen to support research, so that we can benefit from those learnings as we progress on our sustainability journey as well. So collaboration is key to to fixing any of our sustainability challenges.
A few years ago Coles had a sustainability ambition to be the most sustainable Supermarket we recognised that's not actually something we can do on our own, and it's far better to collaborate on some of these issues, so collaboration is key for sustainability for us and I think that's been exemplified today through the launch of SeaGrow where we've seen a University, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, First Nations people, and a large corporate coming together with a common goal to help nature and to help address climate change.
Emma Jackosn, Director CMERC: It's really exciting it's going to be a great facility for us our researchers, for some of the research students but also for our partners in local traditional owners and sea rangers that we partner with at Gidarjil Development Corporation so you know getting more people in to be trained up on how to do seagrass Nursery like management um and so yeah it really really excited.
[Music]
Learn More About CMERC
Coastal Marine Ecosystems Research Centre (CMERC)
CMERC has been established to work with coastal industries and communities to develop practical and sustainable solutions for our unique coast and marine environments.
CMERC Facilities and Equipment
CMERC’s greatest research facilities – the unique ecosystems, industries and communities of the Queensland coast – is right on our doorstep.
CMERC Team
Learn more about the members of the Coastal Marine Ecosystems Research Centre
