Operation Crayweed wins 2017 Green Globe Award

Natural Environment Award
recognises leadership in protecting and enhancing natural ecosystems, including
native plants and animals, threatened species, natural habitats, forests, water
resources, land systems and soils, and biodiversity.

Operation Crayweed team are delighted to receive
the 2017 award. “Winning an award for our state-based initiatives is wonderful
recognition of our goal to conserve and indeed enhance our coasts and estuaries
for future generations,” says Professor Peter Steinberg from Operation Crayweed
Underwater Restoration, a project by SIMS and UNSW.

Crayweed was once
dominant along Sydney’s coastline. Then around 30 years ago it mysteriously
disappeared. It was crayweed which supported a unique ecological community of fish
and invertebrates.

In an
innovative project to restore the species to Sydney’s foreshores, led by the Sydney Institute of Marine Science, the Operation Crayweed team has combined cutting-edge
ecological research, citizen science, community engagement and art to raise
awareness about the importance of underwater seaweed forests.
Recreational divers, a crowdfunding campaign, a website, extensive media, art installations at Sculpture by the Sea, and more
than a hundred school children have all contributed to the project.

By
championing marine restoration together with seaweed-focused outreach, the team
has reversed the local extinction of crayweed along the Sydney coastline. The
project has signicantly increased public awareness of global marine habitat
degradation, and demonstrated the positive role of
science and community engagement in a species recovery.