Tunisia’s Kuriat Islands set the bar for protecting the Med's Posidonia seagrass

Tunisia sets the bar for effective marine protection management: Despite recent analysis showing that Posidonia seagrass meadows have declined by 34% over the past 50 years, conservation efforts on Tunisia’s Kuriat Islands has succeeded to protect the fragile marine prairies due to effective co-management of the Marine Protected Area (MPA), conservationist Yassine Sghaier said in interview published in Oceanographic Magazine.

Seagrass is the third most valuable ecosystem in the world: Seagrass meadows — often referred to as “lungs of the sea” — absorbs the most carbon, produces vast amounts of oxygen, and offers coastal protection through the entrapment of sediment, Oceanographic writes. Due to its importance for the ecosystem, it is estimated to be worth over USD USD 19k per hectare per year. The meadows host around 20% of marine life in the Mediterranean.

The lack of protection spans across the Mediterranean, but the south lags further behind: Currently, around 2.5% of the Mediterranean is covered by MPA management plans. While 90% of protected areas are found in EU countries, 96% of Europe’s MPAs still allow destructive activities within its borders, a report by Oceana found in 2020.

What can we learn from the Kuriat Project? The Kuriat Project found that a co-management approach between local NGO Notre Grand Bleu and national agencies was an effective method of establishing a communication and outreach plan, and implementing monitoring and training programmes, the magazine writes. Yassine has collected data on bird diversity, sea turtle nesting grounds, and mapping the seagrass surrounding the islands for a decade. “The coast here is rich in diversity and that, in part, is thanks to the Posidonia surrounding the island,” Sghaier tells Oceanographic.