Restoring Tasmania's degraded kelp forests

"The thick underwater forests off Tasmania’s east coast used to be so dense they were marked as shipping hazards on nautical charts. Thriving stands of giant kelp, which grows up to 40 metres high, once provided habitat for fur seals, seahorses, weedy sea dragons, rock lobsters, abalone and fish. Since the 1960s, Tasmania’s giant kelp has all but vanished. Despite the rapid speed at which the brown algae grows – up to half a metre a day – around 95% has been killed off by warm waters pushed southwards by the east Australian current . . . The team from the University of Tasmania’s Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies has grown and planted giant kelp that is naturally more tolerant of warm water – up to 4C more heat-resistant than average.'There’s been more success overall than we thought we might find,' says Prof Adriana Vergés, a marine ecologist also at UNSW. Their review found that the effective method was to transplant kelp from a donor site. In addition, the biggest predictor of a project’s success was proximity to a nearby kelp forest. 'What that tells us is that the number one priority should be to protect what we still have,' Vergés says."