To promote seagrass restoration, the Penghu Fisheries Biology Research Center of the Fisheries Research Institute, together with CTBC Financial Holding Co., Ltd., invited parents and children from neighboring communities to participate in seagrass restoration and ghost crab seedling release activities held at the Gangzi Community Activity Center and Gangzi seagrass restoration area at 3 pm on July 3, 2024. The aim was to advocate for the importance of seagrass beds for coastal resources and to help people understand the current crisis facing seagrass bed ecosystems through seagrass restoration activities.
According to the Penghu Fisheries Biology Research Center, Zhenhai Bay, where the Gangzi seagrass restoration area is located, has the largest seagrass bed in Taiwan's intertidal zone. In recent years, due to climate change and human activities, nearly 70% of the original 113 hectares of seagrass bed area has shrunk or been lost. According to a 2020 survey, only 37.5 hectares of seagrass remain, and there is an urgent need for seagrass restoration. To enhance the public's understanding of seagrass bed ecosystems, the Penghu Fisheries Biology Research Center has organized the Parent-child Seagrass Planting—Gangzi Restoration Planting of Seagrass and Release of Ghost Crab Seedlings during summer vacation, thereby promoting and facilitating seagrass restoration and strengthening attention to the ecological environment. The Penghu Fisheries Biology Research Center also invited Director Lao-Ta Chuang from the Department of Sustainable Utilization of Resources of the Ministry of Agriculture, Director Ching-Yi Chang from the Fisheries Research Institute, and four independent directors from CTBC Financial Holding to attend the activity. Together with 13 parent-child groups from nearby communities in the Gangzi seagrass restoration area, they went to the sea to plant seagrass. This activity provided people with more opportunities to interact with the ocean and raised awareness of seagrass habitat restoration, laying the foundation for extensive ocean restoration.
According to the Penghu Fisheries Biology Research Center, since 2015, it has developed seedling cultivation technology for deep-sea swimming crabs and has released millions of them so far. In recent years, most of the crab seedlings cultivated have been released from seagrass beds restored by the Penghu Fisheries Biology Research Center. Due to the multi-level space and abundant food sources of seagrass beds, the survival rate of the released crab seedlings has been greatly improved, which is very helpful for injecting crab resources along the coast of Penghu. Therefore, this release was also carried out in conjunction with seagrass restoration activities. After the seagrass transplantation, a total of 50,000 crab seedlings with a shell width of about 1 cm, which had been cultivated for nearly two months, were released onto the seagrass bed.
In recent years, the Penghu Fisheries Biology Research Center has devoted considerable effort to conducting surveys and research on seagrass in the coastal waters of Penghu. During the research process, it was found that human interference or climate change has caused a significant loss of food sources or seagrass beds that provide habitat for marine life, thereby impacting fishery resources and reducing marine biodiversity. The Penghu Fisheries Biology Research Center is the first institution in Taiwan to invest in seagrass bed restoration research. In the past decade, it has carried out seagrass bed restoration in areas such as Tongliang, Chongguang, and Hujing in Penghu. In 2022, it assisted the Penghu County Government in establishing Taiwan's first protected area for seagrass restoration in the Chongguang area, which has not only enriched fishery resources but also had positive effects on improving marine biodiversity.
On March 28, 2024, the Fisheries Research Institute signed a contract with CTBC Financial Holding to expand the impact of seagrass restoration. They will collaborate on the Penghu Seagrass Bed Restoration program to carry out seagrass restoration and promotion activities. With the support of CTBC Financial Holding on May 8, residents of Gangzi Community and teachers and students of Zhenhai Junior High School were called upon to participate in seagrass restoration activities and invest in the improvement and restoration of seagrass habitats in the restoration area. The restoration area was oriented towards the direction of an intertidal seagrass restoration seed bank, and a series of educational and promotional activities for seagrass restoration were actively carried out to promote seagrass restoration and resource enrichment.
Photo 1. Parent-child seagrass planting
Photo 2. Release of ghost crab seedlings two months after seagrass cultivation
Photo 3. Group photo of parent-child seagrass planting—Gangzi restoration planting of seagrass
Photo 4. Parent-child seagrass planting event