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Kelp Forest Foundation
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.