Purchase Kelp Reforestation Credits
Each WA Kelp Reforestation Credit represents one kelp plant grown at the Indian Ocean Marine Research Centre in Western Australia and planted at our restoration site.
Purchase Kelp Credits now
For the purposes of carbon offsetting, the credit can also incorporate one carbon credit from an internationally recognised carbon standard such as Verra, Gold Standard, or the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism, and can be tailored to meet organisations’ specific compliance requirements.
Kelp Reforestation activities require significant upfront investment to cover costs. By purchasing Kelp Reforestation Credits, you are helping to finance this project. Enabling you to support an Australian ecosystem restoration project whilst also enabling you to offset your carbon emissions with a tonne of carbon selected to meet your requirements.
Join our mission to restore millions of hectares of lost kelp forests globally.
For purchase enquiries please provide your details below.
Project Name
Western Australia Kelp Restoration
Project area
Between Jurien Bay and Kalbarri, WA.
A pathway to unlock kelp restoration globally
Canopy Blue has partnered with The University of Western Australia on a project that aims to restore the 97,438 hectares of kelp forest lost during the 2011 marine heatwave, which caused an estimated 310,949 tonnes of carbon to be released into the atmosphere.
Project Name
Western Australia Kelp Restoration
Project area
Between Jurien Bay and Kalbarri, WA.
A pathway to unlock kelp restoration globally
Canopy Blue has partnered with The University of Western Australia on a project that aims to restore the 97,438 hectares of kelp forest lost during the 2011 marine heatwave, which caused an estimated 310,949 tonnes of carbon to be released into the atmosphere.
Upscaling kelp reforestation
Kelp restoration projects are increasing globally, but most remain short-term and small scale and often rely on SCUBA divers or labour-intensive and expensive techniques.
Canopy Blue have partnered with UWA to upscale restoration, via a direct investment and through the creation and sale of Kelp Reforestation Credits.
The end goal is to unlock Kelp Reforestation globally as a nature based solution to climate change and biodiversity loss, restore the millions of hectares of lost kelp forests globally, to increase CO2 drawdown and mitigate climate change while supporting biodiversity and food security.
Supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Contributing to the positive mental wellbeing of all project stakeholders
Job specific training for local employees
Enhanced biodiversity, support of fisheries, restoration of marine ecosystem
Partnership between multiple organisations or this project
Drawing down CO2 and restoring previous lost carbon stores
Creation of jobs and engagement of multiple businesses
What are kelp forests?
Kelp forests are created by large canopy forming brown seaweeds. They dominate a quarter of the world’s coastlines, mostly in cool temperate environments.
These extensive coastal habitats provide valuable ecological and economic services to humans, including refuges for biodiversity, provision of food and products, and carbon storage.
They are rapidly changing with climate change throughout their distribution, with many regions showing declines as temperatures warm and human impacts intensify.
- Global area of kelp forests: 150 Mha (28% of the world’s coastlines)
- Global standing stock = 150 million Tonnes of Carbon
- Projected rates of global loss: While there are many unmonitored kelp forests with unclear status, the most recent measure is 1.8% instantaneous loss each year. This means that 3 million hectares of marine forests needed to be restored globally in 2021 just to keep pace with current declines.
Why restore kelp forests?
Kelp forests
Kelp forests provide critical ecosystem services to humans, similar to those provided by coral reefs and tropical forests. They also possess a much greater capacity for rapid growth and regeneration than most other ecosystems, taking 2 years to grow to their full biomass.
The benefits provided by kelp forests span 14 of the 18 categories of nature’s contributions to people identified by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Biodiversity
Kelp create underwater habitats (like corals and mangroves) that support high biodiversity by supplying a physical structure for nurseries for juvenile fish. Key species in a kelp forest include: crayfish, octopus, reef fish and in many places also mammals such as seals and sea lions, otters, dolphins and whales. Australia’s kelp forests form the Great Southern Reef (GSR) which is a global biodiversity hotspot.
~70% of the fish, seaweeds and invertebrate species in the Great Southern Reef are found nowhere else in the world! (comparable rates of endemism for the Great Barrier Reef are <10%).
Carbon sink
Kelp forests represent an important and underappreciated carbon sink in the ocean. They are some of the fastest growing plants on the planet. Kelps store organic carbon as standing biomass and sequester carbon through the export and burial of detritus in the deep ocean. Kelp plants take up inorganic carbon (including CO2) from water and convert it into plant tissue (i.e., organic carbon biomass). In this way kelp forests can be regarded as a carbon sink
Also, living kelp are continuously exporting biomass and carbon to adjacent environments where it is long-term buried in seafloor sediments or transported to deep ocean carbon stores.
Projected rates of global loss: While there are many unmonitored kelp forests with unclear status, the most recent measure is 1.8% instantaneous loss each year. This means that 3 million hectares of marine forests needed to be restored globally in 2021 just to keep pace with current declines.