The 30 children from the Ilha da Culatra school who participated in an awareness-raising project for the conservation of the Ria Formosa seagrass beds will receive prizes from small scientists and marine biodiversity illustrators awarded by the Lisbon Oceanarium and Lisbon Airport Faro, tomorrow, June 22, at 11:30 am.
Binoculars and books by scientific illustrator Pedro Salgado are among the gifts that the two institutions will give to the children of this school (1st to 6th grade), as a reward for help they gave to researchers from the Algarve Sea Science Center (CCMAR) involved in the «ADOPT a marine prairie» project.
The small scientific illustrators, guided by CCMAR researchers, "drawn the biodiversity they found in the seagrass meadows that are conserved on their island by the Association of Residents of Culatra as part of the ADOPTE project", according to the Algarve research centre.
The result of this work will be disclosed in an exhibition “to show the general public why it is important to conserve these ecosystems, which they themselves conserve and from which they derive so much benefit”.
“Sea grasslands are the habitat where many endangered species such as seahorses hide, feed and reproduce. Ilha da Culatra is one of the most important places in the world for seahorses due to its seagrass meadows, made up of three species of plants. The marine prairies of Ilha da Culatra are also home to and serve as a motherhood for many species of commercial interest, such as cuttlefish and sea cucumbers, currently in great demand due to the high prices they reach in Asian food markets, where several species are already scarce" , framed the CCMAR
In addition to this economic (and social) dimension, seagrass beds act as a kind of filter, cleaning the water, removing from it «nutrients and suspended particles», while fighting coastal erosion «by stabilizing sediments by their roots» .
“The children at the Ilha da Culatra school are an example of how the conservation of marine biodiversity for the good of all starts with the participation of younger generations who are more directly linked to the ecosystems to be conserved,” concluded CCMAR.
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