Kelp forest protection critical to worldwide moves to protect biodiversity

Daily Maverick

08-05-2025

In an increasingly disembodied and divisive world, the role of storytelling has become ever more important. Stories connect us to one another. They have the power to break down barriers and open hearts. They allow us to see ourselves as part of a bigger picture.
Sea Change Project's mission is to connect people to nature through science-based storytelling. The success of our Academy Award-winning documentary, My Octopus Teacher, underlined this approach, and we continue to work on projects to bring nature into our hearts and homes. After all, nature is our home.
This is the message we are now taking to global policymakers and business leaders, with a specific focus on kelp forests and the Great African Sea Forest where we do most of our daily creative and scientific work.
Kelp forests are some of the most important ecosystems on Earth. They ensure biodiversity, support local communities and act as breeding grounds for fish stocks, and together with their associated seaweed species, play a major role in oxygen production and carbon sequestration.
Covering about seven million square kilometres across 30% of the world's coastlines, these underwater sea forests produce 100 times more oxygen per hectare than terrestrial forests.
In other words, a targeted and effective global kelp forest protection initiative is an important addition to the worldwide efforts to protect our biodiversity.
Economically valuable
Kelp forests are also economically valuable, contributing roughly $500-billion to the global economy each year. Their economic value in South Africa is in the region of about R450-million.
More importantly, they provide massive value in maintaining the ecological balance of large portions of our coastal zones and contribute to the welfare of many communities who live along our shorelines.
However, they face serious threats from climate change, overfishing, habitat destruction, acidification, extraction and pollution. Protecting and restoring these underwater forests is not only an environmental imperative, but also a necessity for the wellbeing of communities and the planet.
Sea Change Project presented the case for the protection of the world's kelp forests to the G20 in Brazil in August 2024, and the item was included for discussion and approval in the G20 meetings being held in South Africa this year.
We again presented the case for an expanded global programme of kelp conservation and restoration at the Oceans20 (G20) conference in Cape Town recently, which now presents an opportunity for the most powerful policymakers, scientists, economists and sustainability experts to find common purpose in one major project while driving multidisciplinary, multilateral collaboration with measurable and actionable outputs.
The 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference (Unoc), to be held in June in Nice, France, similarly presents a huge opportunity for multilateral scientific and ocean governance cooperation.
Sea Change Project, with support from a growing number of international organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and states, will ask delegates at the conference to adopt the G20 action plan to protect the world's kelp forests.
Much of the groundwork is already there. The UN Sustainable Development Goal 14, Life Below Water, provides a policy framework critical to the survival and protection of the immediate zones where kelp forests are found. A global network already exists for kelp protection, in the form of national legislation and demarcated marine protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures.
Additionally, global targets, such as 30 x 30 (a plan to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030), can be harnessed to include the world's kelp zones, and communities who rely on and interact with sea forests are deep wells of local knowledge.
The octopus in My Octopus Teacher showed us the innate wisdom of our wild world. Without nature, there is no planet. And without a planet, we have no home.
We urgently need to place Mother Nature at the centre of all decision making — after all, she is our biggest shareholder. Watch our video, Mother Nature in the Boardroom, here.
By partnering and collaborating across the world, kelp forests can be protected. Governments can drive global policy initiatives and enact legislation that recognises kelp forests as critical ecosystems.
The private sector engaged with marine and coastal zones can align its commercial decisions with biodiversity policies, focusing wherever possible on kelp forest sustainability.
Science-based insights
Scientific institutions can conduct research on human impacts on kelp forest biodiversity and health, and provide science-based insights to inform policy and management practices.
Local communities and indigenous peoples can share traditional knowledge for sustainable kelp forest management, and participate in policy advocacy and biodiversity protection measures.
Finally, NGOs can engage local communities in kelp conservation efforts and advocate for including kelp protection in biodiversity policies, leveraging international agreements.
It is encouraging to see the policy formulation on this issue taking place at state level. This is an opportunity for South Africa and the G20 to take the lead and promote a global project that will have a massive impact on biodiversity protection along coastlines.
Our purpose at Sea Change is to bring people and nature into harmony by telling stories about the myriad plants and animals that live in and depend on the planetary ecosystems.
We humans are part of these stories — and have been for billions of years. Together, we can ensure that they continue. DM