Gardeners of the Baltic Sea

A marine scientist for GEOMAR snorkelling back to the boat after collecting flowering seagrass to harvest the seeds in Laboe, Germany. — Reuters

JUST off the coast of Kiel in northern Germany, scuba divers use hand trowels to dig up emerald green seagrass shoots complete with roots from a dense underwater meadow, delicately shaking off the sediment before placing them in yellow bags.

Back on land, they store the shoots in large cooling boxes, before heading out the next day to a barren area further north to replant them in circles.