They heard that less than 10 per cent of the freshwater wetlands remain in the Herbert river catchment and unlike mangrove systems, no controls exist to protect these critical habitats. The outcome was a resolution by all groups to protect the remaining wetlands adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef and measures were suggested to assist in rehabilitating degraded areas. While most people think immediately of coral reefs when they think of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, the region also contains a number of other important habitats such as mangrove and seagrass communities. There are at least 5000 square kilometres of seagrass habitat in the World Heritage Area which are important to the ecology and the economy of the region. They are an important level in the food chain, directly feeding grazing animals such as turtles and dugong, and indirectly as the decomposing leaves are eaten by invertebrates which in turn are eaten by larger organisms.
Seagrasses also provide shelter for juvenile crabs, prawns and fish.
They are often called the nursery of the sea. Juvenile brown tiger prawns can live nowhere else but in seagrass beds. Seagrass beds stabilise the sediment with their root and rhizone systems. Their role in converting nutrients into food for other organisms helps filter the water flowing on to the reef. Fishing and tourism are both highly important industries in the Great Barrier Reef.