Kelp Forest Foundation - filling the gap in the science around cultivated kelp forest

Giant kelp is drastically understudied given the benefits it can deliver. The promise of cultivated kelp and its ecosystem services need to be quantified and unlocked to speed up the expansion of kelp cultivation at scale. This will help mitigate climate change and create sustainable products which will displace the current more environmentally damaging products.

 

The Kelp Forest Foundation was set up to help address the gap in science and knowledge around giant kelp forests’ ecosystem services – and to ensure this new knowledge is publicly available to companies, governments, regulators, not-for-profits, academics, and other stakeholders in order to accelerate the awareness and application of cultivated kelp forests as a powerful nature-based solution.

The initial research will be undertaken in and around the Kelp Blue' s cultivated offshore kelp forests in Namibia but later on it will continue in other global locations.

The foundation will be adding to the research done by other organizations such as Oceans 2050 and Bigelow Laboratory. KFF will sponsor MSc's and PhD's from Namiban universities such as UNAM and NUST and is working with international universities such as University of Cambridge, University of Portsmouth, Utrecht university to create carbon pathway models and co-supervise students.

It is important to prioritize the most important questions first and focus resources towards answering them. 

Accessing ocean-based technology to collect the relevant data which is both user-friendly and affordable can be challenging.

Hortimare - an essential partner for Kelp Blue.

Hortimare, a Dutch-based company, is one of the few companies in the world specialising in the genetics, breeding and propagating of seaweed. Hortimare works with Kelp Blue to create starting material, increase yield and research on best growing techiniques of the Macrocystis pyrifera specie.

Holtimare has a state-of- the art lab in The Netherlands as well as a highly trained experienced team which specializes in seaweed breeding and propagating. Hortimare is an external technical consultant that is helping Kelp Blue set up and develop a hatchery in Namibia and to train a local workforce to run it. They also work together with Kelp Blue in sourcing, collecting and cultivation methods. They are also co-creating a giant kelp seedbank for future use.

The breeding of kelp seedlings is an essential first step in the cultivation of seaweed. There is no public Macrocystis seed bank so Kelp Blue has had to work with partners around the world to sustainably collect spores from wild kelp beds and transport them back to The Netherlands where Hortimare then optimizes Kelp Blue's hatchery system and seeding technique to get to predictable and consistent yield. They share all the information that is needed to make the farm successful. This as a win-win for both parties. Hortimare gets more and more reliable data and knowledge to be able to develop a certain standard and Kelp Blue can translate their findings to predictability of operation.

Sustainably sourcing material, a breeding programme and a property set up hatchery are the cornerstone of any seweed farmer's project.

Co-operative farming for sustainable livelihood

An institutional support is required for the beneficiaries to promote the products they make through this solution, in local, regional and national markets. Since a single farmer cannot meet the quantity demand of the market and the distributors look for bulk quantity, a functioning co-operative has to be formed at the local level. This cooperation serves the purpose of collecting the products, negotiating the price with the distributor, supervising the manufacturing and distributing the profits. 

There is a high demand for brooms and associated products in the local, national and international market and distributors always buy in bulk. By applying cooperative farming methods, it will be easier for a single farmer to supply their product and get a reasonable rate for it. Instead of approaching single farmers, distributers negotiate prices with the cooperative committee, which also guarantees more stable and profitable prices for their members.

  • The leadership of the cooperative committee should be entrusted to persons in the community who are knowledgeable about the market.
  • The co-operative should be made bipartisan and fair to everyone. 

 

Alliances

Various alliances had to be build to ensure the success of the programme. Collaboration was necessarry between the following stakeholders: 

  • Local and provincial government and administrative authorities
  • Social groups like youth clubs, women groups, agriculture committees
  • Forest and land protection committes 
  • Local, regional and national private sector businesses 
  • Various experts, researchers and scholars in this sector

Since this solution involves multi-level activities from planning, implementation, conservation, monitoring, marketing and promoting, it becomes essential to bring all the stakeholders together and interlink them through common goals and their ascribed responsibilities by the state and the society. 

- Stakeholders don't always have the same interests and goals

- Conflict between the stakeholders in the alliances are common because of their interests 

- The thoroughness of legal aspects while dealing with the local bureaucracy is needed

- The awareness of greater good has to be evoked to all the stake holders, time and again

 

Community participation

The communities living in thes project landscapes are directly involved in all phases of this project: household selection, area(s) selection, plantation and supervision of all activities. The project promotes active participation and involvement in decision-making processes.

  1. Community sensitization, to make them aware of the problem 
  2. Reliability on indigenous knowledge about nature based solutions
  3. Understanding that the project is in the interest of national and global donors, but should ultimately be in-line with the local, regional and national priorities
  4. Trust between the community and the organization had to be developed 

During the inception of this project we relied heavily and in some cases solely on the local's knowlede and age old indegenious craft. But during the process we came to know that some of the componenets were irelevant and had to be balanced with some modern techniques and technologies too.

We also learned that, the interest of the community and the local political will doesnt always match.

Benefits generated to communities and livelihood improved

Community forestry in Nepal has brought a number of benefits including an increase in income. It has helped to fight against illegal logging by putting clear rules in place on timber access and a strong system of forest monitoring. Community livelihoods have also improved with easier access to firewood and fodder and better health care and energy access, for example through money from ecotourism and subsidies for renewable energy.

Community forestry shows traits of political, financial, and ecological sustainability, including emergence of a strong legal and regulatory framework, and robust civil society institutions and networks.

A continuing challenge is to ensure equitable distribution of benefits to women and marginalized groups.  

 

The immediate livelihood benefits derived by rural households bolster strong collective action wherein local communities actively and sustainably manage forest resources. Community forests also became the source of diversified investment capital and raw material for new market-oriented livelihoods. 

 

Communities empowered and trusted

Conservation oriented community forestry is essentially a participatory process that requires strong technical assistance on both policy and implementation. Expanding the property rights of local communities over resources and empowering them with knowledge, information, resources, technologies, and required skills for forest management and institution building are basic building blocks for the community forestry. Gender and equity concerns are addressed from the program design so that the poor, women, and marginalized receive fair benefits from the program.

Legal rights over the resources, institutions, capacity, trust, and leadership,

It evolved from the community level, and is based on traditional uses of the forest by communities. This bottom-up approach is a great strength of the Nepalese model as it gives ownership and leadership to communities to decide both where to create a community forest and how to run it.

Mitigation measures on roads for wildlife and drivers safety

In biodiverse regions roads without mitigation measures for wildlife are causing ecosystem fragmentation. This problem is bigger if the road is between protected areas and when endangered species are dying due to vehicle collision. The effectiveness of the mitigation measures for wildlife is higher when they are implemented based on local wildlife data collection. Implementing mitigation measures like wildlife crossings can start restoring the  ecosystem connectivity between protected areas in presence of a road. This measures also make the road safer for drivers, due to the reduction of car collisions with wildlife. 

1. Scientific study to determine road impact on wildlife and the mitigation measures required to reduce the impact;

2. Team work: Government (environment and transportation) and researchers;

3. Long-term management;

4. Legislation to support the implementation of measures;

5. Budget to implement the measures;

A previus sensibilization work needs to be done to the government representatives. In Costa Rica we have 10 years working on the recommendation of mitigation measures on roads for wildlife. It is a long way, but when the mitigation measures are expensive you need a long-term management, to achieve solid results. Mitigation measures on new road projects are been implemented since 2015, but for existing roads we just found the way for its implementation, through a collaborative work, in 2020. This project is one of our fist attempts at a national level to activate the process of implementing measures on existing roads , through the maintaneiance activities.

Coral Restoration

Only govermentally approved people are allowed to conduct these activities, however we do involved non-approved divers and non divers to assist in Coral restoration to help with maintenance work that does not involve collection or transplantation of any coral fragments (like cleaning coral tags etc)

Coral fragments are collected around the reef edge. These "corals of opportunity" are broken fragments that will enventually die if we do not collect them. Once collected, they are transplanted to artificial structures to help increase the coral diversity and population.

Some corals are adopted as part of our Adopt A Coral Program.The adopted coral is transplanted and named, then monitored, photographed and measured every 3 months. The data is published online and is freely available for research into coral growth. This program also helps provide data into coral growth and health states.

 

  • Goverment approval
  • Social media
  • Environmentally minded individuals
  • Logistics (scuba diving, dive boats)
     

The actual process of transplantation is quite simple. The other factors that we did not take in to account initially is the time that is required to keep the areas clean of fouling organisms, collect measurement data and photography records of corals. All the post care maintenance is vitally important to secure a high survival rate of coral transplants.
 

Governmental Approval

Some of our programs involve coral transplantation. In Thailand it is illegal to touch or damage coral, so we had to seek approval for some of our programs.

To receive approval from the government involves first submitted a proposal for a coral reef restoration zone. Including with this proposal are the techniques for transplantation, the people involved and their experience and qualifications, and a long term plan for monitoring and maintenance.

The DMCR has fully approved our restoration related activities and we conduct transplant research and provide them with that data.

  • Coral restoration experience
  • Long term plan
  • Proposal to government
  • Assessment and approval

This is a long process to get approved. Being able to show that our programs are successful and being assessed and approved took over 2 years of communication, submissions, and assessments.

To be able to obtain permission requires a group of committed volunteers that have relevant experience and are willing to participate in the program for a long term period of time.