Most of the Great Barrier Reef is not coral. Along its coast run the quieter habitats, the seagrass meadows that feed turtles and dugongs and the oyster reefs that filter the water and give small fish somewhere to hide, and both have had a hard few decades of cyclones, floods and harbour works. Anna Marsden, who runs the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, calls the seagrass "the hidden engine room of the Reef, quietly doing the work that keeps this ecosystem alive." Now a stretch of Gladstone Harbour in central Queensland is getting both habitats back at once. In a multi year trial announced at the end of September, seagrass meadows and oyster reefs will be restored side by side, one of the first places on the Reef where the two have been tried together, so that scientists can see whether each helps the other take.

Green seagrass blades in clear shallow water
A seagrass meadow in shallow water. Photo: Danjgi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Read the full story: Chubb and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation join forces to restore Australia's coastal lifelines, Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

Money for the trial comes from the Chubb Charitable Foundation, the giving arm of the insurer Chubb, and the work is in the hands of people who have been in this water for years: researchers from Central Queensland University, CSIRO and Griffith University, the fishing conservation group OzFish Unlimited, and the Traditional Owners and local communities of the harbour. Seagrass flowers are collected by hand and raised in a nursery before the seedlings go out, and Chubb's own staff will join the scientists in collecting them. "Seagrass meadows capture carbon far faster than tropical rainforests," Marsden said, and the Reef holds a large share of the world's seagrass. John Keogh, Chubb's president and chief operating officer, said protecting the planet's natural assets "is fundamental to our purpose." Every method tested here is meant to be written up so it can be used on a bigger stretch of coast next time. "It's about rebuilding the places that keep the Reef alive," Marsden said. In Gladstone, the rebuilding starts with a flower.

Our short take: from the Great Barrier Reef Foundation media release of 29 September 2026, also carried by Mirage News, with the SeaGrow nursery and the staff seagrass collection detail from the Mirage copy of the release.