7.1 California: emerging kelp report and state targets

Tristin McHugh, Pike Spector, Kristen Elsmore

Over the past decade, California's response to widespread kelp forest decline has evolved from a collection of local recovery efforts into a statewide approach focused on ecosystem conservation, restoration, and management. Driven by growing concern over large-scale kelp forest loss and lack of natural recovery, the State of California has invested more than $11 million in monitoring, research, restoration, and community engagement to better understand the drivers of decline, identify pathways for recovery, and initiate restoration efforts.

This transformation has been enabled by a series of interconnected policy and funding milestones. Guided by the state’s groundbreaking Kelp Action Plan, released in 2021,¹ targeted investments such as the collaborative Kelp Recovery Research Program and Accelerating Kelp Research Program,² launched through the California Ocean Protection Council (OPC) and California Sea Grant, in coordination with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), have expanded scientific understanding, restoration capacity, and innovative experimental recovery efforts across the state to protect and restore kelp ecosystems.

In 2023, CDFW, in partnership with OPC, began developing a statewide, ecosystem-based, adaptive Kelp Restoration and Management Plan (KRMP)³ for giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, and bull kelp, Nereocystis luetkeana. The KRMP is California’s first comprehensive framework for kelp conservation, restoration, harvest management, and adaptive stewardship. By integrating ecosystem-based management, restoration planning, Tribal engagement, science, and permitting considerations into a single strategy, the KRMP aims to provide a framework for meaningful restoration and support the long-term management of these iconic ecosystems.

This proactive policy environment has accelerated innovation throughout the state. Tribally led monitoring, management, and restoration initiatives are playing an increasingly important role in ecosystem recovery while supporting Indigenous stewardship and sovereignty. At the same time, researchers, practitioners, agencies, and community partners are evaluating a growing suite of restoration approaches, including native purple sea urchin population control, kelp cultivation and outplanting, habitat enhancement, and emerging approaches (e.g., Array to Recover Kelp Ecosystem Vegetation (ARKEVs),⁴ drift supplementation). These efforts are supported by long-term ecological monitoring programmes, advances in kelp canopy mapping, and strong community engagement, creating a foundation for adaptive management and a learn-by-doing approach built on the best available science.

While significant challenges remain and kelp loss continues to outpace restoration in many regions, California's leadership demonstrates how policy can help create conditions necessary for ecosystem recovery. The State's most notable achievement is not a single restoration technique, but the deliberate alignment of public support, scientific investment, funding mechanisms, and management frameworks around a shared vision for kelp forest recovery. California offers an example of how governance can move beyond isolated restoration projects and meaningfully embed ecosystem recovery within broader biodiversity, climate resilience, and ocean stewardship agendas.

7.2 Canada: NKELPA and the launch of the first national kelp alliance

Hannah Solway, Margot Hessing Lewis, Marianne Fish

NKELPA, the National Kelp Ecosystem Learning and Practice Alliance, spans Canada’s Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic coasts. It is the first national working group linked to the Kelp Forest Challenge and is collaboratively led by a coordination team comprising the Hakai Institute, WWF-Canada’s Coastal Habitats Hub, and the Kelp Forest Alliance. Together, they support a steering committee of approximately 30 members and a community of practice of more than 100 people from over 50 organisations.

Importantly, NKELPA brings together people from a wide range of backgrounds, including research, Indigenous communities, government, industry, and non-profit organisations. Together, they are guiding the development of a national Kelp Action Plan that is grounded in regional realities and prioritises locally relevant action.

NKELPA is building a knowledge-to-action framework to support the future of Canadian kelp ecosystems. The process begins with metadata. Using a standardised template, NKELPA is cataloguing what kelp data, information, and knowledge already exist across the country, where they are held, and who holds them. This inventory will feed into a national State of Kelp Report, which will synthesise the broader picture and use a readiness assessment to help identify priority objectives and enable action.

From there, the action-planning process will support the development of regional plans that identify opportunities to work across coasts and set practical priorities based on the available evidence, community needs, and remaining knowledge gaps.

Steering committee discussions have surfaced consistent priorities:

• Enhancing collaboration and coordination
• Mapping where kelp forests are
• Making decisions with incomplete knowledge
• Making Indigenous and community leadership central rather than consultative
• Researching standardised assessment methods, aquaculture techniques, and ecosystem services provided by kelp forests

The ambition is for NKELPA to become a model for similar regional and national alliances elsewhere. By developing a compatible and adaptable approach to cataloguing kelp knowledge and translating it into regional action plans, NKELPA aims to create a framework that can be transferred across jurisdictions. Working alongside the Kelp Forest Alliance and other international partners, the longer-term vision is for countries and regions to coordinate more closely in pursuit of shared kelp conservation goals.

7.3 Norway: 5,000 km² of kelp lost and a national kelp restoration plan

Kjell Magnus Norderhaug, Thomas Wernberg, Karen Filbee-Dexter, Johanna Zimmerhackel, Cecilie Wathne

In June 2024, the Norwegian Parliament adopted Parliamentary Resolution 789, requesting the Government to develop a plan to systematically restore kelp forests along the Norwegian coast. The resolution followed consideration of Norway’s integrated ocean management plans and is being progressed by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries together with the Ministry of Climate and Environment. The Institute of Marine Research (IMR) was tasked with developing the scientific basis for the plan and published its first assessment in 2025.⁵ In 2026, the plan is being developed further with the Directorate of Fisheries and the Norwegian Environment Agency.

The 2025 assessment concluded that more than 5,000 km² of kelp forest has been lost and identified climate change and marine heatwaves, eutrophication and runoff, and overfishing and associated changes in food webs as major drivers.⁶,⁷ It also identified scaling, financing, and governance as key barriers to national restoration.⁵

The next phase evaluates a business-as-usual scenario against a range of restoration and management options, including sea urchin removal and harvesting, quicklime treatment, artificial reefs, marine protection, predator deployment, and kelp transplantation and seeding. These measures are being compared according to their expected ecological effects, spatial applicability, costs, scalability, and uncertainty, alongside socioeconomic, regulatory, and institutional considerations. The plan also draws on restoration experience from Norway and internationally.⁸ The national plan is expected to be presented in 2027.

Importantly, the Parliamentary resolution did not include dedicated funding for national-scale implementation. Financing therefore remains a central challenge rather than a secured delivery mechanism.5

A major strength of the Norwegian process is the connection between political mandate, scientific assessment, socioeconomic analysis, and the agencies responsible for implementation. Its main limitation is also instructive internationally: political ambition currently exceeds both demonstrated restoration capacity at large spatial scales and available financing.

Several transferable lessons emerge. National restoration planning should establish ecological baselines before selecting interventions, address the causes of degradation rather than only replacing lost habitat, compare active restoration with passive recovery and protection, and consider costs, regulation, and scalability from the outset. Pilot projects, long-term monitoring, and adaptive management are also essential before committing to large-scale deployment. Norway illustrates that national restoration planning is not simply about choosing technologies, but about linking ecological recovery with governance, finance, and long-term ecosystem management.

7.4 Washington: coordinated partner engagement advances kelp conservation policy and funding

Jeff Whitty, Bree Turner, Cynthia Harbison, Tom Mumford

Washington’s kelp story is fundamentally one of collaboration and coordination. In parts of Puget Sound, kelp forests have declined substantially, but the response has increasingly brought together Tribes, community groups, agencies, non-profits, universities, and policymakers around a shared approach to recovery.

Washington’s kelp story is fundamentally one of collaboration and coordination.

A major step came in 2020, when more than 40 partners co-created the Puget Sound Kelp Conservation and Recovery Plan.⁹ Rather than focusing on a single intervention, the plan established shared priorities across research, monitoring, policy, restoration, education, and outreach. This collaborative approach gained further momentum in 2022, when the Washington State Legislature directed the Department of Natural Resources to conserve or recover more than 4,000 hectares of kelp and eelgrass by 2040.¹⁰ The resulting statewide framework is being developed with Tribal co-stewards and other partners, and approximately 1,200 hectares of protection zones have already been established.

Washington has also begun turning these plans into stronger policy. A statewide Kelp Policy Advisory Group developed recommendations to improve mapping, management guidance, and regulatory protection. Kelp partners are working with the Department of Ecology to strengthen consideration of kelp through updates to the rules in the Shoreline Management Act.¹¹ In 2025, bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) was designated Washington’s official state marine forest, following advocacy involving students and Tribal and non-Tribal community representatives. The designation is symbolic, but it also reflects how far kelp has moved into the state’s public and political conversation.

In 2025, bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) was designated

Washington’s official state marine forest

Progress has been supported by investment from state, federal, and private funders in monitoring, research, advancing restoration techniques, coordination, and public engagement. In 2026, the Puget Sound Marine Vegetation Implementation Strategy¹² was released to support accelerated recovery of kelp and seagrass by providing strategic planning support and a framework for funding regional and local projects. Maintaining Washington’s kelp conservation and recovery momentum will depend on continued funding for ongoing programmes rather than short-term project cycles alone.

What makes Washington distinctive is Tribal leadership, partner collaboration, community support, and how policy, funding, and research increasingly reinforce one another. Instead of relying on isolated restoration projects, Washington has developed shared targets and working groups, and implemented long-term planning that strengthens policy, regulations, and programmes needed to conserve and recover kelp forests across the region.

The broader lesson is that kelp revitalisation is not only an ecological challenge. It is also a coordination challenge. Washington shows what becomes possible when long-term targets, investment and Tribal and community leadership are built into the way kelp forests are managed.

7.5 EU: Nature Restoration Regulation

Cristina Piñeiro-Corbeira

The European Union Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR) establishes the first legally binding EU-wide targets for restoring degraded terrestrial, freshwater, coastal, marine, and urban ecosystems. Adopted in June 2024 after negotiation between the European Commission, Council, and European Parliament, it required all Member States to submit their draft national restoration plans by 1 September 2026. The Regulation supports implementation of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, particularly Target 2, and aligns with the EU Green Deal and 2030 Biodiversity Strategy.¹³,¹⁴

Member States must restore at least 30% of habitat areas in poor condition by 2030, 60% by 2040, and 90% by 2050. Equivalent targets apply where habitats must be re-established to reach their favourable reference area (FRA). The NRR also requires continued improvement in habitat condition, stronger non-deterioration safeguards, and progressive closure of knowledge gaps, including assessment of 50% of habitat areas by 2030 and all areas by 2040.

Its practical impact will depend on the quality, ambition, and financing of national restoration plans, which remain under development. Marine implementation presents particular challenges because historical baselines are uncertain, monitoring is incomplete, and data outside Natura 2000 sites are limited. Establishing credible FRAs and defining “good condition” will therefore require substantial investment in marine observation, harmonised indicators, and more detailed monitoring than is currently available under many existing directives.¹⁵,¹⁶,¹⁷

The Regulation does not create a dedicated funding mechanism. Instead, implementation is expected to draw on programmes such as LIFE, Horizon Europe, regional funds and the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, alongside national and private finance.

For kelp forests, the NRR provides an important opportunity to move European policy beyond protection towards active, accountable ecosystem recovery. Its planning, reporting, and transparency requirements could strengthen the recognition of kelp forests within marine governance. However, effective implementation will require coordination beyond EU waters, particularly across the Atlantic Arc and North Atlantic, where kelp ecosystems extend into the United Kingdom, Norway, and Iceland. Shared monitoring protocols, compatible definitions of ecological condition, and cross-border restoration planning will be essential for managing these transboundary ecosystems coherently.¹⁸

7.6 Can kelp forests be included in a country’s carbon accounts?

Brian Takeda and Tomohiro Kuwae

The Paris Agreement (2016) has 194 national parties and is the global framework for keeping climate warming below an average of 2°C. Within that, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are the national climate commitments which are submitted by each party and form the basis for national targets and sectoral policies related to CO₂ emissions.

Nature conservation has been included in many countries’ NDCs, either through terrestrial carbon sink habitats (e.g., forests) or later, via “blue carbon” in marine habitats such as mangroves, saltmarsh, and seagrass.¹⁹ Indeed, at least 45 countries have included these habitats in their national inventories and as part of their climate mitigation strategy.²⁰ Although seaweeds are major carbon-fixing marine habitats, they were originally excluded as their carbon is largely exported and stored offsite (as detritus or dissolved organic carbon) rather than fixed in sediment beneath the plant.

While there has been increasing discussion about including seaweeds as official blue carbon habitats, very little was official until the 63rd session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, October 2025 in Lima, Peru).²¹ Here, parties approved an outline that creates a pathway for coastal wetland systems such as tidal flats and seaweeds in the forthcoming 2027 Carbon Dioxide Removal Methodology Report. If finalised, this methodology will make it easier for Parties to assess and include seaweed ecosystems in their NDCs.

Japan is an exception and has moved in advance of an international consensus. In 2020, the Japanese government co-launched the J-Blue Credit, the world's first government-approved, voluntary blue carbon credit system, which extended eligibility to wild and farmed seaweeds alongside mangroves and seagrass. Importantly, the Japanese methodology focuses heavily on co-benefits and emphasises the ecological, social, and economic benefits that also occur with seaweed and kelp conservation. As an additional step, the scheme also allows for private investment and support for marine conservation projects.

In 2024, Japan became the first country to report carbon removal from seaweed beds in its national Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory. Japan subsequently included these ecosystems within the scope of its 2035/2040 NDCs submitted in 2025. Japan is now pushing a step further, by building on its voluntary blue credit experience to launch compliance-grade blue credits. The Plan for Global Warming Countermeasures, adopted by Cabinet decision on 18 February 2025 as the government's comprehensive implementation roadmap for its NDC, explicitly designates blue carbon as a priority removal pathway, signalling the government's intent to move blue carbon credits from a purely voluntary instrument towards formal integration into national compliance policy.

With further international collaboration and standard setting, there is a clear pathway to include seaweeds, including kelp forests, in NDCs and country-level climate strategies. These strategies also have the opportunity to go beyond carbon and focus on the whole-ecosystem benefits provided by protecting and restoring these ecosystems.