All kelp news
This week
The State of the World's Kelp Forests 2026 is out: more protection, more restoration, and a long way still to go
The Kelp Forest Alliance's second global stocktake finds protected kelp habitat up from 16 to 23 percent since 2024 and over 19,000 hectares restored, while warming and overgrazing keep pushing forests into decline.
5 weeks ago
A new report on Massachusetts kelp farms delivers a sobering verdict: it grows, but it doesn't sell
A Massachusetts kelp cultivation report tracking ten growers found the plant can survive the state's waters, but almost nobody could find a way to sell it profitably.
6 weeks ago
Scientists are diving into Monterey Bay every week to watch kelp face down a “super El Niño”
UC Santa Cruz researchers are diving weekly through Monterey Bay's kelp forests to document, in real time, how a forecasted super El Niño reshapes the ecosystem as it happens.
7 weeks ago
California approves the country's biggest kelp farm off the Ventura coast
The California Coastal Commission unanimously approved a 3-square-mile offshore kelp farm near Ventura, the country's largest, built to supply soil and plant-health products, not seafood.
9 weeks ago
Bull kelp die-offs continue along the Northern California coast
Warming water and a sea urchin boom keep pressuring one of the West Coast's key nearshore species, with a $4.9M federal restoration effort now underway to help it recover.
10 weeks ago
Sea otters help kelp forests bounce back where they return
A 30-year comparison of two otter-reintroduction sites found the same keystone predator produces very different recovery speeds.
11 weeks ago
Coastal communities plant new kelp to rebuild lost forests
A federally funded restoration project on the Sonoma-Mendocino coast is testing three ways to help bull kelp resettle bare rock.
12 weeks ago
Kelp forests act as a natural buffer against storm waves
A field study at a restored Southern California kelp bed found real, but more modest than assumed, wave-damping effects.
13 weeks ago
Warming oceans are reshaping where kelp can grow
A global satellite analysis projects kelp forests could face 6 to 16 times more marine-heatwave exposure by the end of the century.
14 weeks ago
Kelp farming is expanding along several coastlines
Maine's kelp-farming network hit a record 1.3 million pound harvest in 2024, up from just 53,500 pounds six years earlier.