Seagrasses are flowering marine plants that form underwater meadows in shallow coastal waters, where they act as highly productive nursery habitats and blue carbon ecosystems, support productive fisheries and protect shorelines.  Seagrass meadows cover an estimated 324,248 km² globally, including around 25,780 km² recorded in the Mediterranean bioregion and about 3,030 km² in the Temperate North Atlantic.  

Seagrass is not significantly cultivated in Europe, but rather protected, monitored and actively restored.  The biggest stakeholders are sectors and institutions that depend on healthy seagrass ecosystems: fisheries and seafood supply chains that benefit from nursery habitat, and coastal communities and tourism that benefit from clearer water and wave attenuation.