This has been an in-the-water summer — the team has barely taken a break, and it shows in the progress: all seagrass translocation for the season is done with half a hectare now planted. Monitoring started this week, working through the sites in order — Loch Craignish first, then Ganavan, with Loch Na Cille to follow later this month.

Early signs are good across most sites. Loch Na Cille is the exception, as part of the restoration is performing less well than anticipated. We're keeping a close eye on it as monitoring continues there. Alongside the new plantings, we're also re-surveying last year's sites to track how they've established over time.

The field team will continue regular monitoring through October. After that, over winter, we'll pull all this season's data together and write up the results. The next monitoring round is scheduled after winter. This one matters most, since it tells us how the seagrass has handled the winter conditions.

📖 On top of that, we've been building local skills! The team ran its first seagrass restoration course through the restoration school in August, in which 8 people were trained. Participants came from Barra and Mull, alongside others from Scotland and England who want to run their own projects or are genuinely keen to get more hands-on experience. A second course follows in September.