Walking on the Wight: Rebekah Noakes Solent Fieldwork Officer with Project Seagrass

My first and earliest memory of the isle of wight was diving out of Osborne Bay for seagrass restoration work early in my conservation career. At this point most of my diving had been in seagrass beds around Plymouth. I was apprehensive at first for diving in the Solent, being one of the busiest shipping channels in the country, however what I was met with was a beautiful habitat rich in life! It is my experience with seagrass that has now brought me back to the island. I studied marine conservation in Plymouth for 4 years focusing my research on monitoring and mapping seagrass habitats. When a job opportunity came up to work with Project Seagrass as their Solent Fieldwork Officer, I jumped at this opportunity not only to work with a species that fills me with excitement but also to work within a community that’s so closely connected with its marine environment.

Being new to the island my plans are to fully explore the walking routes, with the coast path circumnavigating the whole of the island, whilst I live here, I aspire to have walked the whole path! Currently working out of Sandown some of my favourite stretches of the coastline is along Sandown beach; this is a beautiful and ever-changing environment that I personally enjoy most on a stormy overcast day where the sea and sky become one.

I can’t wait to share my enthusiasm for walking the UK coastline at the Isle of Wight Walking Festival. I believe this is an opportunity to celebrate the amazing coastline on offer around the Island and being able to tie this in with seagrass conservation truly excites me. For the series of seagrass spotter walks myself and my team at Project Seagrass will be hosting we will be walking along the coast at known seagrass locations harvesting fragments and mapping seagrass habitats. This is an exciting opportunity to help us map these habitats to improve our understanding of their extent.  As part of our Seagrass Ocean Rescue Project, we are trailing different methods of restoring seagrass meadows one of which being planting fragments. With the help of the walking community, we will be able to breath new life to seagrass plants that may have otherwise rotted on the beach. By replanting these fragments, we allow them to continue to provide a healthy functioning habitat that helps fight the climate crisis. We recommend for this walk being comfortable wading to give us the most amount of time to collect fragments. If mapping seagrass and supporting our planting efforts excites you and you would like to get out and about before the Walking Festival in May look out for our Fragment collection points located in Sandown, St Helens and Ryde and download our seagrass spotter app https://seagrassspotter.org/ to get started now!

Join Rebekah on one of her Project Seagrass: Seagrass Fragment Walks on Tuesday 14 May at 10am or Wednesday 15 May at 11am.