Seagrass as a Resource: New CONTRA Website
CONTRA develops strategies for the environmentally sound and economically efficient management of beach wrack. Just recently the project launched its new website.
Latest news from the project and background information on the topic is now available at www.beachwrack-contra.eu. CONTRA addresses beach wrack, which is one of the persistent effects of eutrophication and pollution of the Baltic Sea. Mainly consisting of seagrass and algae, beach wrack can cover Baltic Sea beaches for weeks after storms, rotting into a smelly soup and leaking nutrients back into the water. Traditional beach wrack management involves either pushing it back into the shallow water to become someone else’s problem further up the coast, or, in case of insufficient current, to carry it away from the beach, transporting it to a nearby place and leave it rotting away just “out of sight” of touristic hot spots. Established measures for beach wrack management understand these materials rather as a burden than a resource. Moreover, they are costly and unsustainable and often in direct conflict with measures of environmental protection. To address this conflict and to balance opposing interests, the CONTRA project conducts a fair and comprehensive evaluation of all environmental, social and economic aspects of beach wrack management at six case study sites. This evaluation includes ecological impacts of beach wrack collection, industrial cycles of beach wrack processing and value chains of beach wrack based products or services.
REM Consult supports the CONTRA partnership in the project and financial management and communication. Learn more about our services in EU projects here.