The largest seagrass restoration project ever undertaken in the UK has been launched in an ambitious £1.8 million marine recovery programme in Cornwall. As well as plans to restore 10 hectares of seagrass meadow in Falmouth Bay, the project includes the restoration of native oyster populations across the Fal and Helford Special Areas of Conservation through a combination of active habitat restoration, monitoring and community stewardship.

Delivered through a new partnership between the Ocean Conservation Trust (OCT) and Cornwall Wildlife Trust (CWT), Mor Nature, Cornwall’s first seascape-scale marine restoration initiative, will combine OCT’s expertise in large-scale seagrass restoration with CWT’s leadership in native oyster recovery.

With Mor being the Cornish word for sea, Mor Nature, will contribute towards 2043 government targets to increase seagrass by 15% compared to 2024 levels.

Backed by £1.4 million from Defra's Species Recovery Programme alongside additional funding partners, the project supports the government's Wild Again: Restoring England's Wildlife campaign. Led by the OCT and Cornwall Wildlife Trust, the three-year programme will bring together multiple partners, including Falmouth Harbour, Cornwall Council, the Zoological Society of London, the University of Exeter, the Duchy of Cornwall, Falmouth Marine Conservation Group, and other local organisations, to help rebuild some of the UK's most important marine ecosystems.

Seagrass meadows are among the most important habitats in the ocean, supporting biodiversity, improving water quality, storing carbon and protecting coastlines from erosion, while delivering significant cultural and wellbeing benefits for local communities. Increasingly recognised as 'nature as infrastructure', healthy seagrass habitats are needed to provide an essential ecosystem that underpins the resilience of coastal communities and economies.

The restoration site stretches between Swanpool and Pendennis Castle in Falmouth Bay, where OCT first established protective measures in 2022 through the installation of Sensitive Habitat Marker Buoys and voluntary no-anchor zones. The project also builds on CWT’s extensive work in the area to map and monitor the existing seagrass meadows and will expand its network of intertidal seagrass restoration sites. CWT will also work with fishers and community groups to establish new oyster nurseries in the Helford.

Over the past winter, OCT's team cultivated more than 21,000 seagrass seedlings at its National Seagrass Nursery. These plants will now be transplanted into the restoration site, alongside thousands of additional seeds deployed using innovative restoration technology developed by the charity.

The work is highly complex, requiring months of cultivation, specialist logistics, vessel operations and underwater installation by trained divers, all while navigating changing tides, weather conditions and challenging underwater visibility.

Andy Cameron, Conservation Project Manager at the Ocean Conservation Trust comments: "Mor Nature represents a major milestone for marine restoration in the UK. We're not simply planting seagrass; Mor Nature represents the holistic cultivation of an entire underwater garden, nurturing the relationships between interdependent species and habitats that will allow a plethora of marine life to thrive. We're helping to rebuild an interconnected marine ecosystem that supports wildlife, strengthens coastal resilience and delivers benefits for local communities.

"This project demonstrates what is possible when conservation organisations, local communities, government and industry work together to restore nature at scale."

By working collaboratively to restore seagrass and native oyster habitats, partners aim to create conditions that support a wide range of marine species, including seahorses, spider crabs, cuttlefish, bass and sharks.

Dr Dan Barrios-O'Neill, Head of Marine Conservation at Cornwall Wildlife Trust, adds: "Native oysters were once a defining feature of Cornwall's seas, creating thriving underwater habitats that supported wildlife, fisheries and coastal communities. Through Mor Nature, we have an opportunity to restore not only oyster populations, but the ecological functions they provide.

"Cornwall Wildlife Trust is leading the native oyster restoration and intertidal seagrass restoration elements of the project building on our community-first approach, working with local fishers our Your Shore community group network, and citizen scientists to restore our seas.”

The project will also contribute to wider environmental goals around biodiversity recovery, climate resilience and improved coastal water quality. Seagrass meadows act as natural carbon stores, trap pollutants and sediments, reduce harmful bacteria in surrounding waters and provide nursery grounds for commercially important fish species.

To ensure that the habitat restoration has the best possible chance of success, Mor Nature will engage local communities through citizen science projects, snorkel safaris and educational events designed to reconnect people with their local marine environment.

The programme also serves as a testing ground for the future of large-scale marine restoration. OCT is working with partners through Project AMPERES to trial automated and robotic restoration technologies. The Meadow Maker, and the Automatic Seagrass Planter, are two different machines that aim to help automate the process of planting seagrass. Funding will be used to trial the effectiveness of each machine on a small patch of the meadow but the vast majority of the 10 hectares will be planted by OCT’s specialist divers.

As governments, businesses and conservation organisations seek scalable solutions to the biodiversity and climate crises, Mor Nature offers a glimpse of what large-scale ocean recovery could look like in practice.