Seascape Symposium II: Reconnecting the Seascape

In 2022, the first Seascape Symposium explored ecological connectivity across temperate coastal habitats, such as seagrass, saltmarsh, native oysters, and kelp forests, with 150 attendees of scientists, regulators, policy makers and practitioners. The importance of integrated restoration of coastal habitats at the scale of the seascape is realised now more than ever, with collapsed European native oyster ecosystems, an accelerated global loss of seagrass over the last 100 years, 50% degradation of global saltmarshes, and 60% degradation of existing kelp forests. If global restoration targets are to be delivered, it is time to build on our understanding of the temperate seascape’s potential to deliver for nature and people at scale. 

On 4th and 5th June 2025, ZSL will hold a second Seascape Symposium, “Reconnecting the Seascape”, in collaboration with the University of Portsmouth and the University of Edinburgh. Seascape Symposium II aims to connect coastal habitat experts to explore the principles of seascape restoration, update on advances in restoration science, habitat connectivity and monitoring, and continue to build a community that can work together to overcome the barriers to scaling up coastal habitat restoration.