The UK Begins Its Largest-Ever Seagrass Restoration in a Cornish Bay

On July 8, 2026, conservationists off the coast of Cornwall began the largest seagrass restoration ever attempted in the United Kingdom. The three-year programme, called “Mor Nature,” is led by the Ocean Conservation Trust and Cornwall Wildlife Trust and backed by £1.8 million in funding, including £1.4 million from the UK government’s Species Recovery Programme. Its central goal is to restore 10 hectares of seagrass meadow in Falmouth Bay, between Swanpool and Pendennis Castle.

Seagrasses are among the ocean’s quiet workhorses. These underwater flowering plants store carbon, filter and clean seawater, trap sediments and pollutants, and shield coastlines from erosion, all while forming dense meadows that serve as nurseries for commercially important fish and shelter for creatures such as seahorses. Yet seagrass has vanished from large stretches of Britain’s coast over the past century, making restoration on this scale a significant step. “Mor Nature represents a major milestone for marine restoration in the UK,” said Andy Cameron, the project’s Conservation Project Manager.

The programme pairs seagrass planting with a second recovery effort: rebuilding native oyster reefs across the Fal and Helford Special Areas of Conservation, including the establishment of new oyster nurseries in the Helford estuary. Native oysters are ecosystem engineers in their own right, filtering water and building living reefs that host a wealth of other species. “Native oysters were once a defining feature of Cornwall’s seas, creating thriving underwater habitats,” said Dr Dan Barrios-O’Neill, Head of Marine Conservation at Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

Mor Nature draws on a broad coalition of partners, including Falmouth Harbour, Cornwall Council, the Zoological Society of London, the University of Exeter, the Duchy of Cornwall and the Falmouth Marine Conservation Group. The work feeds into a national ambition to increase England’s seagrass extent by 15% compared with 2024 levels by 2043. In an era when much marine conservation focuses on protecting what remains, projects like this go a step further — actively rebuilding lost habitats plant by plant and reef by reef, in the hope that Cornwall’s waters will one day teem with the meadows and shellfish beds that once defined them.