Crystal: [00:00:00] I am Crystal DiMiceli and welcome to the Forces for Nature Show. Do you find yourself overwhelmed with all the doom and gloom you hear of these days? Do you feel like you as just one person, can’t really make a difference? Forces for nature cuts through that negativity. In each episode, I interview someone who is working to make the world more sustainable and humane.

Join me in learning from them and get empowered to take action so that you too can become a force for nature.

When you think of underwater ecosystems worth protecting, coral reefs might be the first thing that [00:00:45] comes to mind. But what if I told you there’s another oceanic, giant, quieter, lesser known, yet even more expansive and just as vital? In this episode, I’m joined by filmmaker Adam Hussein, who’s currently working on a documentary called Sea Forestation.

Through his lens, we dive into the lush, towering world of kelp forests, home to otters, seals, and a staggering array of marine life. These underwater forests cover more area than coral reefs help buffer coastlines absorb carbon, and yet people barely know they exist. Adam and I talked about why kelp forests matter, what’s threatening them, and how restoration efforts around the globe are [00:01:30] offering hope.

We even chat about playful seals, giant stingrays, and how kelp can hold a key to a healthier ocean future. So if you’ve ever tangled your surfboard leash in seaweed and thought, Ugh, what a nuisance. Prepare to seek kelp in a whole new light.

Adam, thank you so much for joining me on Forces for Nature. It’s so great to have you.

Adam: Thanks for having me.

Crystal: Kelp forests are actually home to my favorite animal, the Otter, and so I’m really excited to talk today about the film that you’re creating, sea Forestation and learn more about the Kelp Forest and what their situation is throughout the whole world.[00:02:15]

Can you first tell me a little bit about the movie?

Adam: Yeah, so Sea Forestation is, it’s a feature length documentary, so it’s gonna be about 60 to 90 minutes, and the premise of the film is. To show the kelp forest and all its beauty in as many parts of the world as possible to create a kind of global picture so people can, people who, people who don’t know much about the kelp forest can quickly learn a lot about it.

It’s sort of an attempt to go from A to Z and to not only educate, but show the kind of beautiful palace that is the kelp forest all over the world and all that’s different. Diverse species of kelp in different environments and different animals that live within [00:03:00] it, as well as showing the stories, telling the stories of photographers and researchers and organizations doing restoration work and fishermen culminating that all into a sort of a film that’s supposed to educate and inspire people to just care more about the the kelp forest.

Crystal: What I was really surprised to learn was that kelp forests cover more area than corals and could even have, are more valuable like than, let’s say, the Great barrier Reef in terms of monetary income for, for Australia, for example. That is something I didn’t know.

Adam: It’s, it’s true. Yeah. So kelp forests cover an area that is five times [00:03:45] larger than coral reefs.

And you know, that’s kind of shocking for most people to hear because you think of the ocean, you think of restoration in the ocean, ocean, ocean, and you’re like, oh, save the coral reefs. That’s like the first, even me, like before I started this film, you know? Yeah. That’s, that’s what I associated with Ocean Health was Coral Reef health.

And then I started to think as a California native. We obviously don’t have coral reefs. You know, I, I’ve always cared deeply for the ocean. I’ve always known that there is kelp, but I didn’t ever think of kelp as an equivalent to corals in my own backyard. So I just kind of thought of it as when I would surf, I would see it and it would, you know, you’d get tangled up on the leash and it was kind of a [00:04:30] nuisance, and you’re like, oh, there’s the kelp.

You didn’t really think of it as this huge living organism. This, that’s a structure and just the foundation, the heartbeat of wildlife on the cold water coast of the entire planet, which it is.

Crystal: I, I need to take a step back and actually I should have asked you in the beginning tell us what is a kelp forest and, and where can they be found?

Why are they important?

Adam: A kelp forest is a, or first of all, kelp is a large brown macro algae, and it covers one third of the planet’s, coastlines a little bit under one third of the planet’s coastlines. That’s huge. Yeah, it’s an enormous part of our planet. And

Crystal: in only cold water [00:05:15] or

Adam: throughout It’s, it’s in cold water, so it’s in the temperate regions they call it, but it’s also been found in arctic waters as well.

Oh, so even in like under the Antarctic ice sheets, there’s been seaweed, which seaweed is kind of an umbrella term that includes kelp within it. There’s a lot of different types of them. The one that gets the most attention is the giant kelp, which is defines the coastline of California and a lot of other parts of the world.

Um, Tasmania, all the way up the Pacific Coast from Baja, California to Alaska like the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. But there’s also Alon Maxima, Colonia radiata. There’s the Golden Kelp, which is the Great Southern Reef. So there’s all these different kind of types of kelp forests that create [00:06:00] different types of, some of them form canopies, such as the bull kelp and the giant kelp on California.

Can canopies

Crystal: like, yeah, canopies like a forest canopy.

Adam: Yeah. So a canopy meaning like it goes all the way from a rock where it attaches via a hold fast, and then it goes all the way up to the top and it basically, it’s just like columns that go all the way to the top of the water. And it’s so tall that it rests on the surface.

It defines like the amount of light that gets through, and it creates this whole space that all these organisms within it rely on.

Crystal: So if they’re so important though, why haven’t we heard more about them?

Adam: Yeah, that’s a really good question that, that I wish I had the answer to. I think there is [00:06:45] just, just a huge draw and fascination to the amazing like tropical regions of the ocean with the clear water and these really bright, vibrant fish and bright, vibrant reefs.

And it’s natural to like how many people, you know, go diving in cold water. I. It’s not

Crystal: me, just period like,

Adam: so I think it’s not very common for people to see it with their own eyes. So I think that’s what makes it so important to, to make a film that brings them into that environment so they can feel that empathy for the kelp forest the way they do for corals.

Crystal: And as a forest, I imagine they have a plethora of benefits that they, they provide.

Adam: A ton. Yeah. So I mean, they filter the water, [00:07:30] they sequester carbon from the atmosphere. They protect coasts from coastal erosion, as well as just supporting all of the things that we ally on it. So if you think about from the bottom of the food chain, like these little microscopic bacteria and phytoplankton that eat the nutrients that are there as a result of the kelp force being there.

And then you have the bottom feeders that eat those and you have invertebrates. All the way up to marine mammals and you know, megafauna, it’s all related. So starting from that small stage where all those all the way up from the bottom to the top of the food chain, everything relies basically on the thing underneath it.

And the thing at the bottom is always a primary producer. In this case it’s gonna be kelp. Then [00:08:15] if you pull that primary producer away. Then you’re basically sweeping the rug underneath the whole castle whole chain. Yeah.

Crystal: Yeah. And they’re home to otters and seals. Mm-hmm. And a huge array of biodiversity.

What’s endangering them? Because the amount that is out there in the world has been drastically cut.

Adam: So when you talk about what’s endangering the kelp forest, it’s common to hear kind of one sided reason. So some people you might hear their entire reason is because of urchin barrens or sea urchins over grazing the kelp.

In other regions you might hear that it’s because of the water temperature, you know, because the, obviously the kelp is a cold [00:09:00] water organism. So when the water heats up, it makes it very stressed and it can die. And then some people might say overfishing. ’cause you overfish a certain predator. And that leads to this overabundance of urchins.

And then there’s invasive species and pollution and you know, plastic. So

Crystal: all the things,

Adam: it’s kind of, it’s tough to pinpoint all of it into one or even a couple of them. The answer I have come to find is that it’s just all of them. So in most places it’s never just one thing. It’s usually a combination of.

Ocean warming, marine heat waves, overfishing of predatory species within the kelp forest. In rare cases, there’s also like over harvesting, [00:09:45] which has been an issue down in like Chile and Argentina area.

Crystal: I was actually gonna bring that up because I learned of a campaign in Ireland. Against a company that wants to harvest a wild kelp forest.

And I wanted to ask, is that a prevalent problem or, and or are we able to plant, grow and harvest kelp forests like we do with farms on land?

Adam: Yeah. I mean, that’s already being done. It’s a lot. Yeah. So, and it’s completely sustainable practice to kelp farm. It’s done in a lot of places around the world, so it’s probably why wild kelp.

Oh, I thought you were talking about like kelp farm where you harvest. [00:10:30] Oh, so they’re, they’re harvesting the wild kelp you’re saying?

Crystal: Yeah. Sorry that there was, it was actually kind of two questions. So yeah, they, there’s a campaign because they wanna harvest the wild kelp. But I was wondering, could they plant it elsewhere and then harvest it?

Can it be done like Yeah. Farming as we know.

Adam: So, yeah. So it can be done where you, and that’s probably the preferred way where you, where they put like these lines down in the water and they attach kelp and it’s just basically they’ve created a little kelp farm and you can harvest it that way and that way you’re creating what you’re taking.

So it’s completely like zero effect on the environment. It’s actually a positive effect on the environment. You’re putting kelp in the water. It’s great for adding seed stock for restoration efforts as well.

Crystal: Okay. Alright, so [00:11:15] well actually, let me take that back. There’s a company that I interviewed on Healthy Seas called nla, and they’re using seaweed to create their plastic like packaging products.

And so I suppose it could be kelp or a different kind of seaweed, but yeah, now that I’m thinking about it, I think they are farming it in the way that we, that you just said.

Adam: Yeah. It’s, it’s a, it’s a really sustainable way to farm. Much more sustainable actually, than any other like type of farming

Crystal: really.

Adam: Yeah. If you think about it, like you’re not putting fertilizer in the ground, you’re not doing those things. You’re just adding something that’s good for the ocean, into the ocean and the new, taking it out and,

Crystal: oh,

Adam: there’s pretty much no negatives I could think of to doing that. Cool. Unless there’s gear being littered, but I don’t really think that’s.

I think that’s more of a commercial [00:12:00] fishing problem mm-hmm. Than a kelp farming problem.

Crystal: Yeah. With the gear and everything that, that’s certainly something Healthy Seas works for, or cleaning up that gear. But what is something about these forests that, in creating this documentary, what is something you’ve learned that surprised you?

Adam: I think just the, the sheer amount of kelp that exists in the world. Was probably the most staggering figure that I learned. Oh. You hear all these different comparisons. Like some people have estimated that it’s, if you put all of it in one place, then it would double the size of India. Wow. Which is just, I can’t even like wrap my head around thinking about

Crystal: how much

Adam: that, and the fact that [00:12:45] it’s just such a, it covers so much of our, of our coast and it’s still kind of.

Absent from the mainstream narrative around ocean restoration and the, the conversation of our oceans, I think it’s, it should be on par with those other ecosystems like coral reefs and mangroves and seagrass meadows and those other big ecosystems that we appreciate as our, what we need to, you know, protect and support.

Crystal: In filming your documentary, do you have any most memorable moments?

Adam: I think it’s always memorable. Anytime like a. Anything from the ocean jumps onto your boat? No. You’re [00:13:30] filming on,

Crystal: I would say that’s memorable for sure. So

Adam: there’s been a couple instances where there’s been really playful seals and sea lions that have like hopped onto the boat, which is just always great.

That’s so fun. When I was in Tasmania filming with Dr. Kane Layton, he’s a researcher, or I think he’s no longer at University of Tasmania. At the time he was researching Giant Kelp in Tasmania, the last 5%. Of giant kelp in Tasmania. 5%.

Crystal: Mm-hmm.

Adam: Wow. Um, so we were diving on his restoration site and he just pointed out to me as we were diving, he’s like, oh, look over there.

And I, I look over and there’s a 14 to 20 foot long stingray. Oh, [00:14:15]

Crystal: wow.

Adam: And I’m just like, because, because this is a giant kelp forest in Tasmania, which is the, it’s the same species of kelp we have in. Southern California. So I was used to seeing this ecosystem and it looked the same. It’s, I was like, oh. I was like, I’ve been here before and I look over and I see this, this giant stingray, and I’m just, this is just not the same place like that.

It just clicked right there. I was like, okay, I’m not off the waters of LA or San Diego right now. So that was, that was pretty amazing. Just the wildlife interactions in general. It’s, it’s really cool to just see and seeing, like I was, I’ve come really close to. Sharks and different types of marine mammals, and it’s been really.

Really like that interaction is just so pure and just makes me feel warm.

Crystal: And [00:15:00] 5% in Tasmania, what’s happened there?

Adam: Yeah, so they have the Eastern Australian current that’s pumping warm water from the tropics south into Tasmania from the mainland Australia. Not only has that brought warm water, it’s nutrient poor water, and it’s come with the larvae of the long spine urchin.

It is technically an invasive species to Tasmania. It’s native to the mainland Australia, but that has become a huge reason that the giant ke forests have been diminished as the longest spine urchin has kind of overgrazed a lot of areas in Tasmania, especially the giant kelp forest. And so since around 1960 or 1970, [00:15:45] they have lost 95% of the giant kelp.

Crystal: But this current’s been there for thousands of years, I assume. Why now? Why is it affecting now? Oh, yeah. So

Adam: I kind of, actually, I kind of said that wrong. So the, the current pumps water from the tropics into this non tropical area, but as the water is warm, that tropical water is warmer and warmer. So you’re getting a larger, significant.

Difference in temperature from the normal kelp forest, like thermal tolerance to what’s being pumped in. So it’s accelerating the warmth even faster in many ways. This is actually a lesson to be learned, I think, for the rest of the world. ’cause you [00:16:30] see this 95% loss in Tasmania and Dr. Kane Layton is something he told me.

That’s, you know, it’s, it’s sad, but this is actually an opportunity for us to learn. Because this is kind of like a window into the future of the oceans for the rest of the world. We’ve seen that if in areas like Tasmania’s waters rise to a certain level in temperature, what we’ve seen the effects that has on giant kelp.

If you look at the RCPA models of how much the environment is gonna change over the next 50 to a hundred years, we are gonna reach those levels that Tasmania is at today. So this is kind of a signal [00:17:15] that, hey, if we don’t do anything, then the kelp forest on the entire planet are gonna end up like the giant kelp forest in Tasmania.

Mm-hmm.

Crystal: And if I’m not mistaken about this statistic over the past year, every single day of this past year. Has been a record breaking temperature in the ocean, like average temperature in the ocean.

Adam: I didn’t, I didn’t know that. That’s very alarming.

Crystal: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s shocking. And I remember last summer in the Florida Keys, the temperatures were over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

The, the ocean was a jacuzzi.

Adam: Yeah. That’s not good. Not good.

Crystal: Not good.

Adam: That kind of leads me into another topic. I. [00:18:00] We have to be aware that the oceans are going to warm, you know, we can mitigate. We do need to mitigate our emissions, and that’s the most, actually the pressing issue we face probably as like a human race.

But since we know that even if we stopped all of our emissions today, these effects would continue to increase for, you know, a number of decades before leveling off. We do have to think, I think about. How we can help our ecosystems survive the conditions we’ve created, we we need to help them adapt.

There’s a lot of really cool research in the film that I’m excited to showcase both by the people in Australia and California related to assisted adaptation where you’re [00:18:45] either in the lab helping the, you know, the genes of the kelp to withstand warmer waters. Or let’s say there was an event where there was a really bad heat wave on a certain part of a coast and like 90% of the kelp died.

You can take those last 10%. What those 10% have in common is resilience to heat because that’s why they’re still alive. So you can take those individuals and replant them. Now granted, you can’t replant them anywhere. They’ve gotta be relatively nearby. And you can kind of accelerate their ability to adapt to the warming waters, then they’re gonna have that warm water tolerance.

And if you kind of compound this effect over and over and over again, you do this 10 times, 20 times, 30 times, [00:19:30] then you really start to see an effect and ability to withstand these warmer waters. But that being said, these researchers, what they’re up against is the scale of it all. ’cause we’re losing so much, so fast and they don’t have the resources to.

Just go out there and, and replant every single kelp into the right place and like compare it to the scale of loss that is happening. So that’s actually, I think the biggest problem is the lack of resources, which again, stems from the lack of awareness and the lack of attention that the kelp gets in the media.

Crystal: So how can we get this attention? Like how can we see sea forestation? Where can we find it?

Adam: Oh, well this film is gonna go through the film festival circuit first [00:20:15]

Crystal: this year?

Adam: Not this year probably. We’re still working on it. We’re still in production.

Crystal: Okay.

Adam: But the idea is to put it in film festivals and since it’s relevant in a lot of different countries that we’ve filmed in to, to in those film festivals and the countries where it was filmed and.

Then ideally get on a streaming service. But you know, that’s not up to me. That’s up to if someone wants to put it on a streaming service. So that’s

Crystal: the goal. Maybe Earth, that’s tv.

Adam: I would hope so that that would be really cool. Yeah.

Crystal: So I usually like to leave the listener with tips on how they can help the issue that we’ve been talking about today.

Do you have any tips for how people can help the kelp forests?

Adam: I think people can [00:21:00] just start the conversation. Just at the dinner table, Hey, I heard kelp forests cover one third of the earth’s surface that they sequester carbon and blah, blah, blah. Or I think just, just bringing that dialogue as much as we can to gain kind of an empathy for the kelp forest and make it part of that conversation of ocean restoration.

The same way we think of coral reefs. As soon as we start to acknowledge that it’s just as important as these other. Major ecosystems. Then I think we might just start to see these researchers get the resources that they need to save our oceans. So

Crystal: Awesome. Adam, thank you so much. I’m excited for this film to come out.

You have to let us know when that happens. Thank you for all that you do. You’re making a difference.

Adam: Oh, thank you too. It was [00:21:45] a pleasure.

Crystal: I hope this conversation with Adam has inspired you to look at kelp forests with fresh eyes. These underwater giants may not get the spotlight they deserve, but their role in supporting ocean life and in buffering the impacts of climate change is nothing short of extraordinary, whether it’s by spreading the word supporting kelp restoration projects, or simply appreciating the ecosystems that often go unseen, we have a role to play in protecting these vital forests of the sea.

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