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5 Hope Spots You Might Not Know Have Kelp Forests

Cover image: Taylor Griffith
Kelp forests thrive in some surprising places around the world. From the icy waters of Iceland to the tropical seas of the Galápagos Islands, these underwater forests create vibrant habitats that support diverse marine life and sustain coastal communities. Across the globe, 32 Mission Blue Hope Spots are known for their vital kelp ecosystems, and here we take a closer look at five of these kelp Hope Spots and the unique stories they tell.
Northeast Iceland Hope Spot

At the edge of the Arctic Circle, the Northeast Iceland Hope Spot is a haven of geothermal vents, rocky coastlines, and cold, clear waters where underwater forests of tangle kelp (Laminaria hyperborea) thrive. These undersea habitats are part of an ecosystem that supports puffins, Arctic terns, and whales, and some of Europe’s most important bird colonies.…

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

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. …

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Research Expedition to Paramount: The Forgotten Seamount

Cover image: Alex Hearn
In January 2025, a team of scientists from Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Galápagos Science Center (USFQ-GSC) and the Galápagos National Park Directorate (GNPD) carried out a two-week expedition to Paramount: a shallow-water seamount rising from a depth of over 1,500 m to only 180 m below the surface, located 100 nautical miles northeast of the Galápagos Marine Reserve. The objective of the expedition was to characterize the fish community around the seamount and explore its connections with Galápagos. The work was supported by the organizations Mission Blue, Galápagos Conservation Trust, MigraMar, and Bezos Earth Fund. 
Dr. Alex Hearn, Galápagos Hope Spot co-Champion and lead scientist on the expedition, explained that, “due to their relative inaccessibility, oceanic seamounts are relatively understudied, but often play similar roles to oceanic islands in the marine ecosystem.…

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Everything Sharks! A Virtual Event with Eastern Tropical Pacific Shark Experts

August 25th, 2023 at 11:00am PDT (GMT – 7:00)
Everything Sharks! A Virtual Event with Eastern Tropical Pacific Shark Experts, Hosted by Mission Blue and MigraMar
 

 
Our Speakers:
Moderator – Max Bello, International ocean policy expert, Member, MigraMar
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Alex Hearn – President, MigraMar, and Professor Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Hope Spot Champion, Galápagos Islands Hope Spot, Cocos-Galápagos Swimway Hope Spot
LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram
Sandra Bessudo – Marine biologist, Founder and Director of Malpelo Foundation, Hope Spot Champion, Malpelo Island Hope Spot, Member, MigraMar
 

 
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Ilena Zanella – Founder, Misión Tiburón, Hope Spot Champion, Golfo Dulce Hope Spot, Member, MigraMar
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James Ketchum – Director of Marine Conservation and Co-Founder of Pelagios Kakunja, Hope Spot Champion, Gulf of California, Member, MigraMar
Email: …

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The Quest for Kelp and Diving with Dr. Sylvia Earle

Featured image: Salome (left) with Dr. Sylvia Earle inspecting kelp samples © Taylor Griffith
By Salome Buglass
To follow her research on the Galápagos kelp forests, follow Salome on Twitter @bugsalome and her research update on Experiment.

Kelps are giant, brown algae that look a lot like plants, but actually belong to the Protist Kingdom, so they are not even closely related. However, much like trees, kelp can form vast undersea canopies, called kelp forests, teeming with marine file, feeding, breeding and finding refuge there. Kelps are cold water species that need nutrients, light and a hard seafloor to latch on to with their holdfasts (a rootlike system). This is why kelp forests are almost exclusively found in higher, colder latitudes.…

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A Voice for the Ocean: Counting Forgotten Species in the Galápagos

Featured image: Galápagos horn shark © Avi Klapfer
By Courtney Mattison

Before humans ever made landfall in the Galápagos Archipelago in 1535, only 300 years before Darwin’s fateful voyage, whale sharks migrated through the northern islands among oceanic manta rays and schools of hammerheads while green sea turtles munched on algae growing between barnacles the size of tennis balls on the rocks below. Sea lions and fur seals sunbathed on shore, reclining among marine iguanas, crimson Sally Lightfoot crabs, frigates and blue-footed boobies. Despite the challenges of tourism, commercial fishing and climate change, the Galápagos of today looks surprisingly similar. It’s tempting to assume that these islands and surrounding waters are relatively pristine given their remote location and UNESCO World Heritage status, and in some ways they are.…

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Research Expedition in the Galápagos Marine Reserve Focuses on Overlooked Species and Habitats

English and Spanish versions below
Image: Dr. Sylvia Earle is about to go in the submersible for an exploratory dive in the twilight zone a couple of miles off Wolf Island © Rolex/Franck Gazzola 
The Galapagos Islands Hope Spot, Ecuador (August 16th, 2022)

A multi-institutional team of scientists led by legendary oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer, Dr. Sylvia Earle (Mission Blue) carried out a two-week expedition in the Galápagos Marine Reserve on board the M/V Argo to rediscover and evaluate some of the largely overlooked habitats and species in the reserve, as the Reserve approaches its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2023. “Galapagos will always be a special place,” explained Dr. Earle. “It was here that I discovered cold water kelp communities on the equator fifty years ago, and it was Galápagos that, years later, inspired our Mission Blue Hope Spots initiative.”…

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The First Scientific Expedition to Panama’s Unexplored Cordillera de Coiba Hope Spot Sets Sail

Scientists, students and communicators from Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Spain will spend twelve days on the high seas exploring the biodiversity of Panama’s Cordillera de Coiba seamounts. 
Panama, April 27th, 2022

Last year, Panama expanded the Cordillera de Coiba marine protected area from 17,223.52 km2 to 67,908.98 km2 in a move that brought the country to meet its 30×30 conservation goals. Now, an international scientific expedition made up of researchers and students from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), MigraMar, the International Maritime University of Panama (UMIP), the University of Costa Rica and the Ministry of the Environment will set sail on the first mission to explore the seamounts of this protected area. 
 
 
The scientists will conduct daily dives to depths of up to 450 meters, using a manned submarine, and deploy baited remote underwater video systems (BRUVs) several times a day to document the important biodiversity inhabiting the seamounts in the Cordillera de Coiba, located over 60 miles south of the Coiba National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.…

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Dr. Sylvia Earle Celebrates Expanded Marine Protected Area in the Galápagos Islands Hope Spot

By Avrah Sellar, Mission Blue

Today, January 14th, 2022, the President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, signed an official decree enhancing the marine protected area (MPA) around the Galápagos Archipelago in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean. The decree will expand protections by 60,000 square kilometers (23,166 square miles); half of which will be fully protected where no extractive activities are allowed. The new protected area known as La Hermandad, “the sisterhood,” will extend to the maritime border of Costa Rica offering an opportunity for multi-national cooperation to manage marine life like sharks, sea turtles and whales which migrate across countries waters.
 
 
Present at the ceremony was Dr. Sylvia Earle and Max Bello, Global Ocean Policy Advisor for Mission Blue, who attended at the invitation of the President.…

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Tiger Shark Makes Historic Journey From the Galápagos Marine Reserve to Cocos Island National Park

Discovery highlights need to create a marine “superhighway” connecting the two UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
JUNE 21, 2021 –
Scientists uncovered a new example of migratory movements between Galapagos Marine Reserve and Cocos Island National Park on a research trip this year, supporting global efforts to improve the conservation of migratory marine species. The research trip was supported by philanthropist and ocean advocate, Dona Bertarelli, and her family. The discovery is featured in a film by Sails of Change & Only One Collective which urges viewers to sign a petition calling on the governments of Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Panama to establish the world’s first multinational network of marine protected areas.
A female tiger shark – tagged on an expedition led by non-profit organization OCEARCHwith MigraMar, Galapagos National Park Directorate and Charles Darwin Foundationscientists in Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands seven years ago – surfaced at Costa Rica’sCocos Island in February, almost 700 kilometers to the northwest.…

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