SeaForester is an environmental impact organization, based in Portugal, focused on restoring the world’s rapidly disappearing seaweed forests. SeaForester offer its clients an opportunity to bring life back to the ocean by supporting planting of seaweed forests in coastal areas.
Seaweed is a powerful tool for capturing carbon, absorbing more CO2 than trees. At the same time they create more biodiversity and fish in the sea, making our waters healthier. However, rising sea temperatures, pollution, coastal developments and other factors are decimating these underwater carbon sinks.
In the past 50 years, half of the earth’s kelp forests have disappeared from our coastlines. These once vast underwater jungles have been reduced to expanses of bare rock. Not only are they unable to store carbon, but the loss of seaweed has destroyed marine ecosystems and wiped out local fishing industries.
Luckily, this process is reversible. The team at SeaForester utilize ingenious seaforestation solutions such as seeding on small stones. Unlike trees, seaweed needs no soil, fresh water or fertiliser. Seaweed spores are seeded onto small stones and scattered into the ocean. The stones latch on to the underlying reef, the seaweed grows and multiplies, spreading across the ocean floor. The seaweed forest returns.
Once planted, the underwater forests reverse acidification, build up depleted fish stocks, boost marine biodiversity, improve water quality and – crucially – capture carbon. Unlike past efforts to restore marine habitats, seeding on small stones is cost-effective and scalable. So far, SeaForester has tested the technique with success in small scale in Portugal and other countries.
For rapid expansion and global reach, SeaForester offer mobile seaweed nurseries to coastal communities worldwide. These coastal regions will soon be able to take care of their underwater forests in their “blue front yard” in the same way they care for their trees on land.
Larger scale deployments and continued development of the techniques as well as improved monitoring of the underwater forests is now needed. The financial support from SeaForester client´s is much appreciated and crucial for bringing back the “forgotten forests” in our ocean.