A newly released comprehensive Puget Sound Kelp Conservation and Recovery Plan was released in May 2020, with participation from leading experts, organizations, agencies, and tribes. Kelp are a foundation species critical to the health of marine biodiversity, including important commercial fisheries. Devastating losses have occurred on the West Coast since the advent of the Warm Blob, and continuing marine heat waves are taking their toll. Puget Sound is feeling the loss as well, and this newly released plan provides background information and a roadmap to kelp conservation and recovery.
Background information: Extensive bull kelp losses in South and Central Puget Sound, along with localized declines throughout the region, are cause for concern for the health and stability of bull kelp and understory kelp forests in Puget Sound. Kelp forests provide a variety of direct and indirect services for nearshore marine habitats and human coastal populations. Kelp forests of Puget Sound are ecosystem foundations, like coral reefs and tropical rainforests, which supports diverse and productive communities. Like eelgrass, kelp ecosystems provide critical habitat that increases overall biodiversity and are important for many economically valuable threatened salmon species and endangered rockfish.
Initiated in 2016 as part of the Puget Sound rockfish recovery effort, scientists and resource managers used a collaborative approach to review local science and policy relating to kelp forests. Coordinated action is needed to reverse downward trends in kelp populations by addressing both longstanding and emerging stressors. The Puget Sound Kelp Conservation and Recovery Plan provides a research and management framework for coordinated action to better understand kelp population dynamics and drivers of declines while also working to strengthen implementation and enforcement of protective measures. Successfully achieving kelp conservation and recovery will require a collaborative effort between our community of Tribes, managing entities, and stakeholders in Puget Sound.
Read the full Kelp Conservation and Recovery Plan and its Appendices
In the latest episode of Changing Waters, Global Ocean Health’s Deputy Director Julia Sanders interviews kelp guru, Dr. Tom Mumford from the Friday Harbor Laboratories, University of Washington in Seattle. From Northern California to Southern Oregon, kelp is undergoing devastating losses, with 95% of kelp forests transformed into urchin barrens. Tom explains what happened and the miraculous benefits kelp provides as an ecosystem engineer and as a source for new scientific discoveries. From kelp-derived plastic you can eat, to wound care, from rediscovering how kelp can help farmers, to a critical contributor to biodiversity and marine food webs, there is much to be gained from kelp. Catch this episode of Changing Waters and open your eyes to a miracle macroalgae and the struggle to keep it thriving in changing ocean conditions.