Marine Habitat Restoration

Large scale marine habitat restoration through seaweed reforestation 

Southern Ocean Carbon partners with a team of worldwide seaweed experts to harness our combined knowledge to safely and intelligently re-wild coastal areas globally by enhancing or re-introducing a diversity of naturally occurring seaweeds.  

Research has shown that since the 1960s 95% of giant kelp forests have disappeared on Tasmania’s east coast. The disappearance of the once thriving giant kelp forests has severely impacted the rich and sheltered ecosystems they provided for various fish and invertebrates, including economically significant species like abalone and rock lobster.  

This occurrence is not only limited to Tasmania. Kelp forests and seaweed habitats are in decline in many regions of Australia and around the world due to ocean warming, overgrazing, pollution, and other human impact. 

In Tasmania, current efforts to plant thermal-tolerant kelp genotypes by hand have proven to be successful but may be limited and labour and cost intensive. A more scalable and economical approach could be to tow mature seaweed structures to identified areas to spore and reseed the seabed, effectively providing new habitat for marine species. Such efforts have to be coordinated with commercial sea urchin fisheries to ensure the survival of the seedlings.

In other places around the world the solutions may be different. In tropical waters, attaching baby seaweed to rocky substrate would likely achieve similar results at scale. Working with Southern Ocean Carbon gives you access to these insights and knowledge, significantly de-risking your project.