You might remember Keith Bradby from Gondwana Link in episode 79 a few weeks ago. If you haven’t heard it yet, suffice to say here that Gondwana Link has been called “the most exciting thing happening in restoration in Australia, if not the world.” Within its 1,000 kilometre restoration zone lies the Oyster Harbour catchment. And the Harbour that does the catching has drawn renown as the site of the world’s most successful seagrass restoration. With a humble bloke by the name of Geoff Bastyan at the heart of it.

Geoff is regarded as a bit of local legend around Albany, in the south of Western Australia. And a few years ago, he was duly awarded the prestigious Great Southern Development Commission medal.

It was back in the 1970s that Geoff first noticed the local harbours losing their vital seagrass meadows. He self-funded a monitoring effort over the next decade, by which time almost all the seagrass was gone. The harbours were effectively desertifying, largely due to industrial and agricultural run-off. But as older industries closed, and farmers, the local catchment group, and others inland reduced agricultural run-off, Geoff was painstakingly pioneering a way to restore the seagrass - when conventional wisdom suggested it couldn’t be done.

Seagrass benefits the health of marine ecosystems in so many ways, by providing marine habitat and food, preventing coastal erosion by stabilising sediments and protecting shorelines from large swells, and storing nutrients and what’s come to be called ‘blue carbon’. Geoff cites a study here that found the restored seagrass meadows of Oyster Harbour, even after a relatively short time span, store between 30 to 50 times more carbon per hectare than the Amazon rainforest.

This conversation was recorded waterside in Albany, Western Australia, on 5 March 2021.

Title slide: Geoff Bastyan (source from Great Southern Live at a now inactive page - https://www.greatsouthernlive.com.au/albany-wa-oyster-harbour-catchment-geoff-bastyan-sea-grass-rehabilitation).

You’ll see a few photos on the episode web page too.

Find more:
My conversation with Professor Gary Kendrick for the Clean State podcast ‘Blue Carbon, Conservation Economies and the Great Seagras

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