In June 2025, I joined the Giant Giant Kelp Restoration Project (G2KR) and earned my certification in kelp restoration specialty diving. Our focus: a 2.5-acre urchin barren at Tanker’s Reef. where trained divers carefully haul out extremely invasive purple and red urchins using tools, restoring ecological balance without harming surrounding marine life. See a map of the research and control area here.

Our target is to reduce urchin density to fewer than two per square meter, giving young giant kelp a chance to take root and thrive.

Each dive contributed data to the local monitoring team, and to a broader body of research aimed at scaling kelp restoration globally. The work also informs active conversations with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in Sacramento, helping shape the future of state-supported restoration strategies, climate adaption plans and tools for decarbonization.

Kelp is essential for rebuilding ecosystem. Kelp also plays a role in what's known as the ‘blue carbon’ framework, a natural ocean systems that trap atmospheric CO₂. It’s an ecosystem solution with climate benefits. That’s pretty cool.

I joined the research just as Tanker’s Reef 2.0 was announced, a shift in protocol that no longer allows culling onsite. Now, harvested urchins must be hauled out and discarded, with a strict daily limit of 35 red and 35 purple per diver. A fishing license is required as well. The reef itself is shale, not granite, meaning kelp has a harder time anchoring. Add rising ocean temperatures and nitrate-rich runoff from nearby agriculture, and kelp survival faces even steeper odds—a climate and policy tangle we need to take up with Sacramento.

Earlier teams planted kelp directly, and there’s ongoing research at UCLA to explore whether warmer-region kelp varieties could help restore balance in Monterey waters. Unfortunately, purple urchins thrive in these shifting conditions and can endure starvation for years, outlasting the very kelp they once grazed. Sea snails are another quiet grazer, nibbling at recovery.

The problem is complex, but giving up isn’t an option. I used to think marine conservation and bioengineering were siloed interests. But I see the connection now: if the ecosystem collapses, and keystone species like the sunflower sea star—already considered locally extinct—disappear entirely, we may lose biochemical potential nature hasn’t fully revealed.

Status: Ongoing — I continue to attend group discussions, read papers, explore how AI can help with mapping, drive awareness on social media, dive efforts and post-dive reporting through the 2025 season. Additional dives are scheduled as conditions allow.