Virginia restored 12,000 acres of seagrass. Can Maine also stem the decline?

MAINE MONITOR • August 20, 2026

Maine’s seagrass meadows are shrinking and thinning. And this isn’t the only place where seagrass is declining. These underwater meadows off Maine’s coast are part of a global, decades-long pattern of loss believed to be driven by development and human activity on coastlines, nutrient pollution, and climate change. The decline is a serious problem for the young sea creatures who use these underwater meadows as a nursery habitat, and for the coastal communities that the seagrass helps in myriad ways — improving water quality, storing carbon, stabilizing erosion, absorbing the destructive energy of storm surges and more. Scientists have estimated that, between the late 1800s and early 2000s, the world lost about 29 percent of its known seagrass areas. And this loss is ongoing. More recently, using satellite images, researchers estimated that, between 2019 and 2024, the world lost about 4 percent of its seagrass areas.