Seasearch is a citizen science project for volunteer sports divers who have an interest in what they're seeing under water, want to learn more and want to help protect the marine environment around the coasts of Britain and Ireland. Their aim is to map out the various types of sea bed found in the near-shore zone around the whole of the Britain and Ireland and record what lives in each area, establishing the richest sites for marine life, the sites where there are problems and the sites which need protection.
In 2016 we funded Seasearch Northern Ireland to collect data within the largest known seagrass bed in Northern Ireland, both on the density, associated biodiversity and health of the bed, which is now a Marine Conservation Zone. Seasearch also explored if there were other seagrass beds in the nearby area, and were delighted to find and survey a substantial area of unrecorded seagrass outside the MCZ.