Discovering Cartagena

More Articles By Phillip Bruce www.raxomnium.com

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Learn To Love The “Seaweed” 

Sometimes bathers at beaches around Cartagena get a bit upset at the “dirty seaweed” they see washed up on the sand or in the shallows. In fact they should be delighted. 

For this plant is the best indicator of all of the cleanliness of the water.  And it isn’t even seaweed. In fact Posidonia oceania is a true grass.  The plant evolved as a land-living grass, complete with leaves and vascular system, but at some stage over the vast space of time it decided to return to the sea.  Now it grows happily under water. 

However, this is a fussy plant and Posidonia will only grow where the water is absolutely clean.  It doesn’t tolerate any form of man-made pollution.  And the gentle forests of the sea grass that wave in the current are vitally important to marine ecology. All sorts of creatures make their home there and the grass is particularly important when it comes to reproduction, providing a place for eggs to mature and for baby fish to hide from predators.  The grass provides oxygen and food.  Experts say that an immense number of mollusks, crustaceans, fish and algaes depend on the Posidonia for their existence. 

If you look on the beaches you will find little hairy balls, known as “sea balls” in Spanish. There are in fact fibres of Posidonia that have been ground up and shaped by the action of the waves.  Masses of these balls, and decomposing leaves, form an important barrier to beach erosion.  They also contain microscopic eggs of a variety of creatures. 

However, local authorities do have something of a PR problem as most beach visitors want to see only powder white sand and not a mass of healthy but naturally decaying vegetation.  In the past the Posidonia was bulldozed and removed but ecologists now act quickly in the courts to prevent this, as one local council has just found out.  

Campaigns are under way to explain to people the importance of the Posidonia and to let them know that if they want to swim in really clean water then they should be happy to see the unusual grass that grows in the sea. 

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