Help for Kelp

As we learnt in the first issue of Kelp Magazine, kelp forests in Australia, and around the world, are under threat from problems like warming oceans, overfishing and too many sea urchins. Thankfully, there’s a lot of very clever people out there working to solve the problem.

I’m Scott, and I’m a marine scientist and probably just like you, I love the ocean. Did you know that someone who loves the ocean is called a “thalassophile” (say it like this: tha-lass-o-file). I reckon I have one of the best jobs in the world. I work for an organisation called The Nature Conservancy, and for the last few years I’ve been working to retore (bring back) the kelp forests that have been lost in parts of Port Phillip Bay. This means I get to spend lots of time under water. Some days I spend up to 5 hours working underwater, that’s like from the time you start school in the morning until after lunchtime!

So, how do we bring back kelp forests you might wonder? Well, thanks to some very clever people, we’ve been able to learn how to grow baby kelp in tanks, out of the ocean. We can grow these baby kelp on things like string, and rocks.  Scuba divers like me can then go and plant these kelp onto rocky reefs in areas where they once grew. When the kelp are babies, they are so small you can’t even see them with your eyes (unless you have super power vision), but after just one year they are already nearly half a metre tall (about as tall as a wombat).

Thanks to a lot of very clever people working together, we’ve been able to see kelp forests returning to areas that had become urchin barrens. It’s amazing what we can do when we all work together, but it’s much easier to protect what we have before we lose it, than to try to bring it back. So, we still need to make sure that we’re all doing everything we can to protect our planet.

Scott among restored Golden Kelp at Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuary, Port Phillip Bay.

Photo: Streamline Media

Scott holding thousands of baby kelp ready to be planted back in the ocean. The kelp are growing on string that has been wrapped around a plastic pipe.

Photo: Andrew Bossie.