Friday January 26, 2024
The Fish Site —
The international collaboration, led by Aotearoa New Zealand’s Cawthron Institute, with partners Sequench (NZ), Kelp Forest Foundation (Netherlands), and NatureMetrics (UK), has been funded by Oceankind – an organisation that supports initiatives to improve ocean health.
Project leader, Dr Xavier Pochon of Cawthron Institute, believes that seaweeds, in particular kelp, could be a significant source of the carbon sequestered in the ocean.
“Up until now, kelp’s contribution to the carbon cycle has remained unknown because we have not had the tools to measure it, so we’ve assembled a project team with the expertise to unlock this important information,” Dr Pochon said in a press release.
“Our challenge is to quantify the kelp-derived carbon in marine sediments which would improve our comprehension of the role kelp forests’ are playing in the global carbon cycle and their potential for climate change mitigation,” he added.