In its new report titled Out of the blue: The value of seagrasses to the environment and to people, launched on World Oceans Day on June 8, Unep blames these unsustainable activities for a deteriorating coastal ecosystem, a decline in coastal productivity, and affected certain supportive functions performed by the marine plant leading up to loss of critical fisheries habitat.
Seagrass ecosystems are biologically rich and highly productive, providing valuable nursery habitats to more than 20 per cent of the world's largest 25 fisheries and filtering pathogens, bacteria, and pollution out of seawater.
For example, it is estimated that seagrasses covering an area of seven square kilometres of Gazi Bay at the Diani-Chale Marine National Reserve, Kenya, comprise of a total carbon stock of 620,000 Mg, with a monetary value estimated at $19 million in regulated global climate at a global scale.
UNEP said new data suggest that seagrasses are among the least protected coastal habitats.
The Unep World Conservation Monitoring Centre, said it had found in its most recent census that an estimated seven percent of seagrass habitat is being lost worldwide each year.
