I’ve been fortunate to dive in Tasmania’s giant kelp forests over the past three decades, launching into chilly waters. When diving in these forests, light filters through the golden ribbon-like fronds in beams, lighting the array of fish that sail through like birds in a rainforest. On the seabed, pearlescent abalone shells shine and sunset-orange crayfish prowl, eyes agog.
Kelp forms a foundational part of the Great Southern Reef, which extends 8,000 kilometres around southern Australia from Kalbarri in Western Australia to Coolangatta in Queensland. Here, for certain groups of organisms – seaweeds, sponges, crustaceans, chordates, bryozoans, echinoderms and molluscs – as many as 30–80% of species are found nowhere else on Earth. Think the weedy sea dragon, for instance, with its leaf-like fins.
