Hope Beneath the Waves: A Week with the Global Kelp Community in Victoria, Canada

May 15, 2025

Cover Image: Victoria Conference Center with artist Josie Iselin’s seaweed banners. Image: Oriana Poindexter.

Author: Oriana Poindexter

Over 700 delegates from around the world gathered in the beautiful city of Victoria on Vancouver Island last week for the 25th International Seaweed Symposium. This week-long event convened global experts in all the arenas of algae, with sessions and special workshops focused on conservation, restoration, cultivation, policy, and global strategy for seaweed and kelp.

I was honored to attend the conference in my capacity as Mission Blue’s Kelp Initiative Program Manager and found myself among a slew of fellow kelp enthusiasts! I’ve been diving in kelp forests and studying the ecology of these magnificent systems for over a decade at this point, from my vantage point in the giant kelp forests of San Diego, California, and am always amazed at how much more there is to learn. 

Kelp forests are found in temperate waters along thirty percent of the world’s coastlines. They are home to thousands of marine species and also support hundreds of millions of humans living along those coastlines. More than 30 of Mission Blue’s global Hope Spots support kelp forest habitat, from Southern Australia to Iceland. And yet, though kelp forests are declining globally, they have not received the attention, or funding, needed to effectively protect, conserve, and restore them in a warming ocean.

The week kicked off with the 2025 Kelp Forest Summit hosted by Dr. Aaron Eger and the Kelp Forest Alliance (KFA). KFA launched the ‘Kelp Forest Challenge’ in 2023, calling for the restoration and protection of 4 million hectares of kelp forests by 2040, and followed up with the State of the World’s Kelp Forests Report, published in October 2024. The aim of this Challenge is to scale up kelp forest conservation worldwide by providing a roadmap of high-level advice and actions for the global community. 

The Kelp Forest Summit in Victoria brought together a diverse group of over 50 people involved in kelp conservation. Gathered into regional working groups, we used our collective knowledge to share developments in our areas, and began contributing to country-specific plans for scaling up kelp forest conservation. 

I was able to connect with kelp forest researchers and restoration practitioners in California, Oregon and Washington, and learned about the different challenges and successes occurring in areas as diverse as Northern Europe and New Zealand – both in the working sessions, and later, in the ocean. We had the exciting opportunity to literally dive in – scuba diving in the bull kelp forest of Ogden Point, Victoria with buddies from at least five different countries!

The ISS conference proceeded throughout the week with informative plenary presentations and engaging topic area sessions. I learned so much from a wide-ranging plenary session by Dr. Karen Filbee-Dexter, who spoke on the challenges facing kelp and seaweed globally in a warming ocean, and the scientific limitations of open-ocean kelp farming as a carbon sequestration tool. Earlier in the conference, PhD candidate Salome Buglass, a friend of Mission Blue, a National Geographic Explorer, and a Project Scientist at the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF), presented her exciting research on the mesophotic kelp found on seamounts in the Galapagos (Eisenia galapagensis). Other highlights included the launch of the State of the World’s Seaweed Report, and an engaging panel discussion on the relationship between seaweeds and people.

Leaving Victoria, I’m excited by the passion, knowledge, and collaboration shared throughout the week. Learning about current research, ongoing challenges and early successes achieved in different corners of the world will help us support kelp conservation across our global network of Hope Spots moving forwards. Connecting with the global kelp community in person to build new relationships, forge collaborations, and amplify the efforts of our partners will support the development of Mission Blue’s Kelp Initiative. While there are big challenges on the horizon, solutions are taking root, and with continued collaboration, there’s real hope to help the world’s kelp forests.