Kelp Forest Challenge endorsed by United Nations Ocean Decade
Published on the 08 August 2024
A collaborative project that aims to restore 4 million hectares of kelp forests by 2040 has received official endorsement by the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission as part of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030 (‘Ocean Decade’).
The Kelp Forest Challenge, an initiative of the Kelp Forest Alliance, encourages and enables individuals and organisations to pledge their support for the protection and restoration of the world’s kelp forests, which are rapidly disappearing due to rising sea temperatures, overgrazing, overfishing and water pollution.
With kelp forests connected to many parts of society, the Kelp Forest Challenge offers many ways for people to participate. The global movement collects pledges to help kelp forest protection and restoration at all scales, from volunteering in grassroots initiatives to pledging funding for protection, restoration or research. The project aims to increase the amount of area of restored kelp forest, increase the amount of area of protected kelp forests, and to increase appreciation for kelp forests all around the world.
Being endorsed as an official Ocean Decade Action is set to help to boost the global visibility of the Kelp Forest Challenge, leading to more pledges and better progress towards the project’s ambitious goals.
UNSW’s Dr Aaron Eger, Project Director and Founder of the Kelp Forest Alliance, says that the project’s endorsement as an Ocean Decade Action demonstrates recognition of the important role kelp can play in meeting the.
“Helping our kelp is fundamental to achieving the goals of the UN Ocean Decade. These incredibly important marine forests cover over 1/3 of our world’s coastlines yet are often the forgotten forests, receiving a fraction of the attention, policy support, and funding compared to other land and marine habitats,” says Aaron.
“Getting the Kelp Forest Challenge included as an Ocean Decade approved action will help us continue to raise the profile for kelp forests and meet our goal of protecting and restoring 4 million hectares of kelp by 2040.”
Unlocking transformative ocean science solutions
Since its launch, thehas brought together thousands of ocean actors to develop science, infrastructure, partnerships, capacity, and innovations to meet the Ocean Decade Challenges.The Kelp Forest Challenge is unique in thatit was created to not only inspire conservation action, but also to identify and accelerate the production of knowledge that is required to achieve its overall targets.
Over the next three years, the aims of the project are toidentify the key gaps and barriers to achieving kelp protection and restoration targets, to increase participation in the Kelp Forest Challenge, to better understand the current state of the world’s kelp forests, to create action plans to scale up kelp conservation, and to conduct targeted research to assist these activities. Specific actions being explored include the creation of country specific roadmaps that identify priority actions to accelerate kelp forest conservation and awareness, the first ever assessment to quantify the extent of kelp forest habitat protection, and planning for a global kelp forest summit in May 2025.
The Kelp Forest Challenge was among 46 Decade Actions recently added to the UN Ocean Decade global portfolio, which now boasts over 600 endorsed initiatives led by more than 70 countries.