Box 4 Summary of the six challenges for seagrass conservation and proposed policy responses

Challenge 1: Societal recognition of seagrass importance (1) General public needs to experience seagrass for themselves. (2) Seagrass conservation needs to expand focus to encompass research and experience. (3) Expand work with the global media. Challenge 2: Up-to-date information on status & condition (1) Rationalise disparate available global data into a single resource. (2) Improved top-down (habitat suitability and niche modelling and remote sensing) and bottom-up (infield targeted assessments) data collection. Challenge 3: Identifying threatening activities at local scales to target management actions accordingly (1) Harness local ecological knowledge (LEK) to gather information in data poor areas. Challenge 4: Balancing the needs of people and planet (1) Expand understanding of interactions between the socio-economic and ecological elements of seagrass systems. (2) Data required on the fishery activity in seagrass. (3) Recognise seagrasses as part of connected social-ecological system at catchment and seascape scales. Challenge 5: Generating scientific research to support conservation actions (1) Use current high-profile seagrass research (food security and blue carbon) to engage wider research fields. (2) Encourage use of seagrass as a model ecological system or model species. (3) Improved and increased communication of research to a broad audience. Challenge 6: Conservation action in an era of Climate change (1) Incorporate projected future distribution into habitat protections. (2) Use of indicators that provide an early warning of seagrass climate change impacts. (3) Use future climate adjusted conservation targets that allow for cumulative impacts and ecological feedbacks. (4) Develop innovate restoration techniques.