Natural History Wanderings

California’s underwater kelp forests rival the Amazon rainforest in productivity, and they support over 1,000 marine species. But over the last decade, a climate-driven ocean heat wave and an epidemic that wiped out a key predator of the kelp-eating purple urchin, destroyed 96% of Northern California’s kelp forests. But TNC is helping kelp ecosystems recover.

Our scientists are using drones and machine learning to map surviving kelp strongholds, because you can’t help kelp if you don’t know where it is. Check out TNC Ocean Scientist Vienna Saccomanno’s “Notes from the Field” video and see what goes into this state-of-the-art conservation approach.

Sometimes, the most important ecosystems are the ones we can’t see. Though our kelp forests are hiding beneath the waves, they insulate our coasts from erosion and storm surges while sequestering carbon. We need kelp forests as much as they need us.