Societal value of seagrass from historical to contemporary perspectives.

IF 5.8 2区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ENGINEERING, ENVIRONMENTAL

Ambio Pub Date : 2025-03-24 DOI:10.1007/s13280-025-02167-z

Nicole R Foster, Eugenia T Apostolaki, Katelyn DiBenedetto, Carlos M Duarte, David Gregory, Karina Inostroza, Dorte Krause-Jensen, Benjamin L H Jones, Eduard Serrano, Rym Zakhama-Sraieb, Oscar Serrano

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Seagrasses have been entwined with human culture for millennia, constituting a natural resource that has supported humanity throughout this history. Understanding the societal value of seagrass fosters appreciation of these ecosystems, encouraging conservation and restoration actions to counteract historic and predicted losses. This study overviews the plethora of seagrass use in human history, ranging from spiritual and ceremonial roles, direct and indirect food resources, medicines and raw materials, dating back more than 180 000 years. While many past uses have been abandoned in modern societies, others have persisted or are being rediscovered, and new applications are emerging. As these uses of seagrasses depend on harvesting, we also underscore the need for sustainable practices to (re)generate positive interactions between seagrasses and society. Our review contributes to revalue seagrass societal ecosystem services, highlighting ancient and more recent human and seagrass relationships to incentivize conservation and restoration actions.

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来源期刊

Ambio 环境科学-工程：环境

CiteScore

14.30

自引率

3.10%

发文量

123

审稿时长

6 months

期刊介绍： Explores the link between anthropogenic activities and the environment, Ambio encourages multi- or interdisciplinary submissions with explicit management or policy recommendations. Ambio addresses the scientific, social, economic, and cultural factors that influence the condition of the human environment. Ambio particularly encourages multi- or inter-disciplinary submissions with explicit management or policy recommendations. For more than 45 years Ambio has brought international perspective to important developments in environmental research, policy and related activities for an international readership of specialists, generalists, students, decision-makers and interested laymen.