‘Really worth a crack’: bringing Tasmania’s giant kelp forests back from the brink

Researchers from the University of Tasmania’s Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies hope to seed a full half-hectare of lush kelp forest. Photograph: Matt Testoni/The Guardian

The giant kelp forests that flourished along the Tasmanian east coast had all-but vanished before most people realised they were gone.

Scott Ling watched them go. He learned to dive in them at Fortescue Bay, on the Tasman peninsula in the state’s south-east, in 1998.