Underwater Forests Return to Life off the Coast of California, and That Might be Good News for the Entire Planet

Smithsonian Magazine: Underwater Forests Return to Life off the Coast of California, and That Might be Good News for the Entire Planet. Wondrous kelp beds harbor a complex ecosystem that’s teeming with life, cleaning the water and the atmosphere, and bringing new hope for the future... Off the coast of Palos Verdes, a famed surfing spot 30 miles south of Los Angeles, marine biologist Tom Ford, CEO of the Bay Foundation, operates one of the world’s most impressive kelp restoration projects. After moving to the area in 1998, Ford went out scuba diving and encountered a kelp forest. “That was it,” he said. “I was hooked.” For his master’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, Ford studied the trajectories of loss and recovery of kelp all over the world, and the many creatures that depended on it. “If it’s gone,” he said, “they’re essentially homeless.”