NEDRET ANDRE, From the United Kingdom, a full-time SOWA artist working in South End, Boston. She earned her BFA in Painting at Massachusetts College of Art and her MFA in Visual Arts from Maine College of Art. Her abstract oil paintings are process based; exploring color, texture, mark-making, and gestural drawing. Most of her paintings since 2015 have been about our environment, more specifically about seagrass habitats, inspired by eelgrass restoration projects and collaborations with local marine ecologists. She enjoys working in the field with scientists and bringing awareness to the vital importance of this ecosystem. 10 Facts about seagrass & marine life: Seagrass mitigates the effects of climate change by absorbing about 10 percent of the total estimated organic carbon sequestered in the world’s oceans each year. Seagrass absorbs 50% of the oceans’ Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Seagrass can absorb carbon up to 35 times faster than Amazonian rainforest Seagrasses stabilize sediments and reduce wave action by 20 percent, slowing beach erosion and lessening storm damage to coastlines. Globally 29% of our seagrass habitats have died in the last century due to poor water quality (runoff from septic tanks, fertilizer use), storms, and heatwaves. Seagrasses provide crucial refuge for numerous species of juvenile reef fish A single acre of seagrass can support nearly 40,000 fish and 50 million small invertebrates, such as lobsters and shrimp. 2½ acres of seagrass (roughly the size of two football fields) provides habitat, erosion control, and other benefits with an estimated value of nearly $29,000 a year. Seagrass meadows support 20% of the worlds major fisheries and provide vital nutrition to about 3 billion people. In some places, 1 acre of dense seagrass can sequester more than 1,200 pounds of carbon per year—equivalent to the amount emitted by a car traveling about 6,259 miles, more than twice the distance across the U.S.
