bull kelp near the surface of the ocean with blue green ocean around
Photo: Nick Zachar/NOAA

Kelp Facts

  • NOAA’s Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries and Office of Habitat Conservation are partnering with Greater Farallones Association and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to restore bull kelp forests on the Sonoma Coast in Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.
  • Other key restoration partners include academic researchers, Tribes, including the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians Stewarts Point Rancheria
  • Bull kelp forest has historically existed and thrived along the coastal waters of Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.
  • Similar to terrestrial rainforests, bull kelp contributes to climate resilience by capturing carbon from the atmosphere and exporting the carbon to deep-sea environments for the long term.
  • Kelp forests are vital for supporting thriving fisheries on the West Coast and are designated as a habitat area of particular concern for Pacific groundfish and salmon.
  • Kelp has an important role in traditional subsistence knowledge as well as symbolic and spiritual aspects of Indigenous cultural systems.

Bull Kelp

  • Bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) is the dominant species in the sanctuary and is most abundant in the nearshore sanctuary waters along Sonoma/Mendocino counties where it grows at depths from 6 feet to just over 60 feet and attaches to bedrock reefs and boulder fields.

Economic and Cultural Value of Bull Kelp Forests

  • Globally, the benefits that kelp forests provide for the greater ecosystem and human communities have been valued at $684 billion/year (all kelp).
  • The loss of kelp forests has led to total collapse of the commercial red urchin fishery in Sonoma and Mendocino counties, a $3 million annual value of commercial landings, and to the closure of the recreational red abalone fishery, a $44 million annual non-market value. Red urchins are economically valuable for urchin roe (edible gonads of the sea urchin are called roe because they are similar in texture to fish roe).
  • The loss of kelp species and habitats also leads to the loss of important cultural knowledge and practices that have been in place for thousands of years.

Background

  • Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary has seen a series of compounding stressors that have led to extensive kelp declines (up to 95% in some areas) starting in 2014, and loss of critical ecosystem functions such as providing food, shelter, and protection for all kinds of marine life.
  • These stressors included a large-scale ocean warming event, significant loss of sunflower sea stars and a simultaneous boom in purple urchin populations that led to exponentially increasing urchin populations, up to 60 times the historical average.
  • In 2018, the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council formed the Kelp Recovery Working Group, a collaborative team of researchers, nonprofits, Tribal representatives, stakeholders, and resource managers, to address the severe loss of kelp forests in Northern California.
  • The recommendations from this working group were adopted by the council and forwarded to the sanctuary. The Greater Farallones Association incorporated the advisory council recommendations into a Sonoma-Mendocino Bull Kelp Restoration Plan.

Kelp Restoration Plan

  • The kelp restoration plan identifies sites along the coast as areas that likely have greater kelp recovery potential to contribute to the broad-scale availability of spores along the coast.
  • The restoration plan recommends a tiered approach to restoration, with reducing urchin grazing pressure and kelp seeding (planting kelp spores and young kelp) as the primary strategies. The plan then identifies other areas of research as priorities, including kelp forest canopy assessment from remote sensing, spore dispersal dynamics, and sunflower sea star culture and reintroduction.
  • Greater Farallones Association has secured over $9.5 million so far to begin restoring kelp forests in Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. An additional $7 million is needed over the coming five years to begin work at all key sites.
  • The restoration will focus on Fort Ross Cove, Timber Cove, Stillwater Cove, Ocean Cove and Sea Ranch in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary throughout the entire Sonoma County coastline. This region has experienced the greatest loss of kelp along the North Coast (90% loss).