The race to save Maine’s seagrass meadows

MAINE MONITOR • August 12, 2026

Seagrass shelters the young of many marine species, improves water quality and stores some of the excess carbon released by the burning of fossil fuels. Beds of seagrass also absorb wave energy, reducing erosion and buffering coastal communities from storms. They are important for the ocean’s biodiversity. These underwater meadows used to grow abundantly along the Maine coast. But they’ve declined significantly in recent decades. The state had more than 30,000 acres of seagrass beds in the 1990s. Since then, some regions of Maine have lost more than half of their seagrass beds. Rising temperatures, coastal development, nutrient pollution, harmful algal blooms, invasive species and worsening storms may all be playing a role.