The snail, in turn, must evade the masterful octopus that creeps between the anemone-encrusted rocks, while above them sharks prowl through the kelp understory. Between urchin spines, tiny crabs and juvenile abalone take shelter while hungry fish swirl past.
—Photograph by Helen Walne—Sea Change Project
Despite our long history with this ancient ecosystem, “we are only beginning to grasp the magnitude of biodiversity yet to be discovered here,” says Jannes Landschoff, marine biologist at Sea Change Project, the South African non-governmental organization behind My Octopus Teacher, which was filmed in the Great African Seaforest. In partnership with the Save Our Seas Foundation, they are creating the 1001 Seaforest Species app to catalogue the science and stories of this kelp ecosystem.
Underpinning the existence of all this life is the kelp itself: a large seaweed that grows in towering columns with long brown blades curling outwards like leaves. These tall steeples create a living architecture unlike anything else in the ocean. Like forests on land, kelp forms dense canopies at the sea surface that shade a mid-water understory while below, their gnarled root-like holdfasts sculpt the seafloor. Each layer supports its own community of organisms, each creature making a home, foraging for food while avoiding becoming it themselves, finding mates and caring for young.
What happens inside kelp forests shapes wider ocean health. They sustain coastal fisheries, cycle nutrients, and buffer coastlines from storms as sea levels rise and extreme weather intensifies. Kelp has also received growing attention as one of the planet’s most efficient carbon absorbers. Unlike engineered climate solutions still on the horizon, kelp forests already function as living climate infrastructure. Scientists say these benefits—valued at over $500 billion annually—depend on biodiversity.
A Simonstown cuttlefish glides over an urchin-covered rock as a swarm of dream fish streams by. These cuttlefish are only found along the south coast of South Africa, where large parts of the Great African Seaforest grows. Over 15 cephalopods occur here, nearly all of them are endemic to the region - the only place on earth they call home. —Craig Foster—Sea Change Project“Kelp forests are the fabric that weaves together the ocean in our seas outside the tropics and so, when you start to pull apart the thread of that fabric, everything starts to unravel,” says Aaron Eger, founder and program director of the Kelp Forest Alliance. Few places illustrate that unraveling more starkly than California in the mid-2010s.
A cluster of yellow crinoids glows in dappled light filtering through the kelp canopy of the Great African Sea Forest. —Helen Walne—Sea Change ProjectThe rocksucker or giant clingfish is the largest fish of this type in the world. It has evolved a large suction pad underneath its body, modified from where its fins used to be. This suction pad can hold hundreds of times the fish’s weight and enables it to hunt in very rough water without getting washed ashore. It is unsurprising that it evolved in South Africa, as this is the global hotspot for limpets. Limpets are the clingfish’s meal of choice – shell and all, which they twist off the rocks in a fraction of a second, as if opening a bottle cap. —Craig Foster—Sea Change ProjectA shiver of puffadder shy sharks huddles together in a crevice. At around 60cm, these are the smallest sharks in the Great African Seaforest which harbours 27 species of sharks and rays. Puffadder shysharks, like most catsharks, are often found resting together in one place. They hatch from eggs and curl into a ball with their tail over their eyes when threatened. Their incredible sense of smell makes them formidable predators, but they are also highly vulnerable and the vast majority are eaten inside of their eggs, long before they become baby sharks. —Helen Walne—Sea Change ProjectThe immediate culprits: a wasting disease that disintegrated urchin-eating sunflower sea stars and a prolonged marine heat wave that combined with an El Niño event to hike ocean temperatures. Freed from predation, purple urchins razed vast swaths of kelp unchecked. California’s kelp had endured warming before, but this time, the loss of the sea stars proved fatal.
A female octopus tends her eggs in the safety of her den, staying inside for the entire brooding period without feeding. She fans and blows oxygen-rich water over the developing young, keeping them clean, healthy and free from harmful bacteria until the moment they hatch. —Craig Foster—Sea Change ProjectThe Great African Seaforest is home to many thousands of resident species, and also an important place for visitors. A few times a year, swarms of jellyfish like these night-light jellies, drift into the kelp forest and become food for sea forest species like anemones. —Helen Walne—Sea Change ProjectAn octopus stretches out its limbs, exploring all corners of a shallow cave where the water is still that the animal casts a perfect reflection. These ingenious creatures have developed incredible ways to thrive in the kelp forest, many of which were showcased in the Netflix hit, My Octopus Teacher. They are at the centre of the seaforest food web, consuming over 50 prey species and in turn being consumed by a multitude of kelp forest animals. —Craig Foster—Sea Change ProjectSome organisms exert outsized influence, but every loss matters; each vanished species takes with it a role in keeping its ecosystem stable. “Biodiversity is the immune system of the planet. The more varied it is, the healthier the planet,” says Thiyagarajan. Diversity—not just the number of species, but the web of relationships between them—allows ecosystems to absorb shocks and adapt to change. When that web frays, ecosystems lose their ability to store carbon and produce food, water, and oxygen, while withstanding climate stress.
Kelp limpets like this are entirely dependent on the kelp stipes. As young limpets they live and grow in the leaves at the top of the canopy. Then, when they are big enough they will descend down the kelp stipe to claim it as their own. These animals are highly territorial and will spend the rest of their lives feeding on that one stipe and fighting intruding limpets by flipping them onto the seafloor. The GASF is home to 27 limpet species making it a global hotspot for these sea snails. —Craig Foster—Sea Change ProjectUnlike coral reefs, no global laws or policies focus on kelp forests. Only 16% are in some form of protected area and fewer than 2% under the highest protections, which prohibit all extractive activities. “There's not often intention put into protecting kelp forests—they are just captured as part of the larger seascape when marine protected areas are created,” says Eger. “But kelp forests are ecologically and biologically important areas that need to be protected in their own right.”
The planet-like eyes of the pyjama catshark are tiny evolutionary marvels. By gathering aragonite -- crystals of calcium carbonate -- from seawater, the shark builds a gleaming mirror at the back of each eye, helping it navigate through the dark forest at night. —Craig Foster—Sea Change ProjectThis macro image of a bluebottle -- also known as a Portuguese man o' war -- shows the corkscrew-like tentacles that dangle below the colony's float. These intricate structures are packed with stinging cells that snag prey in the water column and are so venomous they can paralyse even large fish. —Jannes Landschoff—Sea Change ProjectIf you are very lucky, you might witness the moment a mottled shyshark, denticle scales prickling for grip, wriggles free from her leathery egg; ending her five-month-long incubation and beginning life among furry sea fans and bright sponges. Nearby, an odd scrap of pink algae transforms, in a blink, to reveal itself as a tuberculate cuttlefish: an endemic shape-shifter that matches colors and textures to dissolve away into the reef mosaic. The abundance is dizzying, the beauty overwhelming. The wonder of it all inspires people to protect what remains.
The Great African Seaforest is an underwater wonder that fringes the shores of Cape Town, South Africa and stretches north for more than 1000km into Namibia. It is the only forest of giant bamboo kelp (Ecklonia maxima) on our planet. —Jannes Landschoff—Sea Change Project
For the local and Indigenous communities along its shores, the Great African Seaforest is living heritage, making its loss unimaginable. “These sea forests have maintained our ancestors’ fabric of life and shaped our culture as we know it today,” says Loyiso “the Kelp Keeper” Dunga. "If kelp forests could speak, they would tell us a story of who we truly are: species once connected to our wild-being." Dunga is a marine biologist and founder of ASILI BLUE REN, an organization uniting science and Indigenous knowledge to protect South Africa’s kelp forests.
In the space between light-seeking fronds and rock-anchored holdfasts, sponge crabs are scuttling, jellyfish are pulsing, otters dance, and clouds of fish flash and flicker. Life is living a thousand unseen lives. “The Great African Seaforest is cold and cryptic and inspiring. I’ve been privileged enough to get to know many of its species,” says Foster. “Our hope is that others will realize how precious this place is.” In a warming world, this sea forest offers a glimpse of what remains possible if life, in all its spectacular forms, is given a chance.
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