The Ocean Green project is all about the restoration of northern Norway’s kelp forests, which have been lost at a massive scale over the past half century. It is estimated that some 80% of the region’s kelp forests are gone – largely replaced by urchin barrens. The Ocean Green goal is to remove enough of these native urchins to reset the natural balance and allow kelp to return.


Around the coast of Norway, different species of kelp grow up to four meters in length, in waters where they can still get the sun in order to photosynthesise. This means that kelp take in CO2 – and release oxygen. They also play a vital role in local biodiversity as well as delivering a surprising number of other benefits.


Because of ecosystem services role that kelp plays, we have to look at its loss as a big picture issue.

Why kelp is important: multiple ecosystem services

When a kelp forest is lost, it is not just a local, physical loss. Because kelp provides such a range of ecosystem services – from nursery grounds to coastal protection, support for fisheries and more – when kelp forests disappear there is a knock-on affect across each of these ecosystem benefits.

A healthy kelp forest is a vibrant, diverse ecosystem. NIVA – one of Ocean Green’s research partners – 

describes kelp forests as ‘among the most ecologically and socioeconomically important habitats on the planet.’


In Norway, the contribution of kelp can be shown in the astounding numbers of species supported by kelp forests – including commercially important fish and species on the red list. An established kelp forest supports other forms of microalgae and seaweeds, while at the invertebrate level, these marine forests boast densities of more than 100,000 individuals of snails, crustaceans, molluscs, brightly coloured marine worms and other invertebrates per square meter.


Moving up the food chain, kelp forests provide habitat, nursery grounds and food for larger species: red-list species like the Atlantic coastal cod as well as commercial species such as cod and pollock, which play an important role in Norway’s economy. These fish in turn support other, larger predators such as seals and seabirds.

Being the wonderplant that it is, kelp does so much more than provide a safe habitat for fish and other species. 

, sequestering CO2 and depositing it at the bottom of fjords and in the deep sea.


Research shows that Norwegian kelp forests bind an estimated 18 million tonnes of CO2, with around 1.8 million tonnes of CO2 exported and stored in coastal and deep-sea sediments each year. ‘If the remaining overgrazed kelp forests recovered in response to improving environmental conditions and restoration actions, a one-off binding of 12 million tonnes of CO2 within living biomass would be achieved,’ wrote NIVA in a 2021 report. ‘This would also increase the annual deposition in coastal and deep-sea sediments to around 3 million tonnes of CO2.’


Coastal defence, nutrient recycling and more

In addition to its contribution to biodiversity and carbon sequestration, kelp plays a stabilising role in its waters. This includes creating acting as a coastal defence system by creating a drag that serves to reduce wave size – which in turn protects coastal lands by reducing erosion.


Kelp also improves water quality by absorbing excess nutrients and pollutants and, though its process of photosynthesis, it increases pH levels, reducing the acidity of surrounding waters – something that further benefits marine life.


What happened to Norway’s kelp forests?

A number of factors have contributed to northern Norway’s kelp forest loss but key is overfishing, which has reduced the numbers of urchin predators like wolffish and crab. This in turn allowed native green sea urchins to spread unchecked as they overgrazed kelp. Even if the urchins are removed and kelp returned, without reestablishing their natural predators as well, the risk of overgrazing remains. NIVA says that marine protected areas or no-fishing zones across areas of restored kelp forest, coupled with quota reductions for known urchin predators, would ‘facilitate predator recovery and maintain low urchin abundances to sustain restoration efforts’. In southern Norway, climate change and warming waters appear to be bigger factors in kelp loss, according to the Norwegian Blue Forests Network.

Kelp loss is not a Norwegian problem but a global issue. Where the problem is caused by too many urchins – an issue itself driven by multiple factors including overfishing and climate change – urchin barrens replace kelp forests. These urchins have traditionally been removed by hand – a time and labour-intensive process that is used by volunteers who go into the water with Rissa Citizen Science, Ocean Green’s citizen science partner.


The Ocean Green plan is to develop a harvester that can remove urchins from much larger areas, much faster. Basing the technology on Ava Ocean’s gentle scallop harvester, the new urchin-removal system will speed up kelp restoration: for kelp to return, urchin density must come down from more than 30-plus per square meter to around just two urchins per square meter. Once that is achieved – and maintained – kelp can reestablish itself with remarkable efficiency.

‘Despite the challenges in removing urchins en masse, kelp makes an excellent target for restoration,’ explains Dagny-Elise Anastassiou, chief impact officer at Ava Ocean and management lead for the Ocean Green project.


‘We know the cascade effect that a healthy kelp forest delivers – from serving as a nursery to multiple species to providing shelter to larger predators. We know how kelp protects the coastline and captures carbon. At the same time, we have seen firsthand – through the work of Rissa CS – just how fast kelp can reestablish itself given the chance. And how quickly fish and other species return too. And that is the ultimate goal of Ocean Green: to tip the balance back in favour of kelp – which would in turn deliver widespread benefits to the local ecosystem.’


She also points to the dual economic focus of the project as a marker of success. ‘We are not just looking to clear urchins from the seabed. We are looking to harvest them and turn them into an economically viable fishery, with 

our science partners working hard to uncover new, urchin-derived products

. This circular-economy approach is designed to ensure the long-term sustainability of our regenerative restoration project.’


Healthy kelp means healthy waters – but these vital forests have been disappearing around northern Norway

Norway’s underwater rainforests: why kelp matters

In the cold waters around Tromsø, volunteers are restoring kelp forests by hand. They dive in to take photographs, monitor species and to remove sea urchins one by one. It is slow work. It is also essential. More than eighty percent of Northern Norway’s kelp forests have disappeared as urchin numbers have increased and predators have declined. The same pattern is seen in many places across the world. When kelp is eaten down, the seabed is left bare and almost nothing grows back on its own.


This local challenge is part of a global story. 

Ocean Green was created to address it at scale.

 The project brings together science, technology and community involvement to restore kelp forests and rebuild ecosystems that have been lost.


The newest step in this work is also the most surprising. It is a small activity that feels almost like a game. It is calm, simple and strangely addictive. It is called the Urchin Density Challenge.

Rissa Citizen Science has launched the challenge through the 

. Anyone anywhere can now take part in the research happening in Tromsø. You are given a photograph of a small frame placed on the seabed. Your task is to count the urchins you see inside the square. That is all. Yet each count becomes part of an important dataset used by researchers at the University of Tromsø. These data help them follow changes in the restoration areas over time and understand when kelp is able to return.


Delphin Ruché, founder and director of Rissa Citizen Science, describes it this way:
‘The Urchin Density Challenge takes citizen science to the next level, inviting people around the world to document biodiversity changes in areas where volunteers are restoring kelp forests.’


Some images show many urchins. Others show none. Sometimes a bright starfish appears. Users begin to recognise patterns. They learn what a barren looks like and what recovery looks like.

Ocean Green brings together advanced engineering and hands on monitoring. Ava Ocean is adapting its gentle seabed harvesting system so that urchins can be removed at scale without harming the seabed. NIBIO, NIVA, Hofseth Biocare and Akvaplan niva are studying 

new uses for the harvested urchins, from food and fertiliser to enzymes and biomaterials

. Together they are working to build a circular value chain that supports long term restoration. The project is part funded by Norway’s Green Platform and is endorsed by the UN Ocean Decade.

But citizens remain at the heart of the work.


Dagny Elise Anastassiou, Ocean Green project manager and Chief Impact Officer at Ava Ocean, explains why:
‘We made citizen science a core part of this work because people matter. Many ocean issues stay invisible and are easy to ignore. When people are part of the process, projects are more likely to become long term solutions.’


She adds:
‘The app is easy to use and fun. Some photos show lots of urchins, others none, and suddenly colourful starfish appear. It is quite addictive.’

The challenge builds on a wider programme of outreach. Volunteers in Tromsø meet every month to take photos, monitor species and help reduce urchin density by hand. A new permanent exhibition will open on the town jetty in January. It shows the shift from urchin barren to recovering kelp forest in the water below. Schools across Northern Norway have also taken part in screenings of 

, a visually rich documentary by Ismaele Tortella, followed by discussions about predators and ecosystem change.


Together these activities help make the invisible visible. They give people a direct view of the problem and the solution. They build a shared understanding of what is happening below the surface.

The app requires no training. A few minutes is enough. Yet the data collected supports real science and contributes to a growing body of international knowledge. It shows where kelp may return and how quickly. It helps researchers understand how restoration works over time. Anyone can take part. Schools. Organisations. Families. Individuals.

Ocean Green invites the public to join the challenge and become part of the story.

 The work is serious, but the entry point is light and accessible. A simple count. A global contribution. A small step towards bringing kelp forests back.


The story behind the launch of the Urchin Density Challenge

Introducing “urchin sudoku”: gamification of citizen science

How do you map a sea floor for kelp restoration? How do you accurately map the impact of urchin removal or monitor the return of biodiversity?

At Ocean Green partner akvaplan-niva,Pierre Priou – a researcher specialising in active acoustics – has been doing something new: adapting a technique used to map the ocean floor, to look at whether the substrate is sandy or rocky for example, to also look at kelp and turn data into a map of the water column.

‘The novelty here is that we are using a small, autonomous vessel together with a type of sonar. or multibeam echosounder, to map kelp forests,’ he explains. ‘Most of these instruments were designed to map the seafloor but here, we are not only looking at the sea floor but also what is going on above, in the water column. This has not been done a lot – and in particular not from an autonomous vessel.’

The autonomous vessel in question is an Otter, an un-crewed, multi-beam seabed mapping device, which Priou has been using to gather data for the first test site of the Ocean Green project. There, a harvester developed by Ava Ocean will remove large numbers of native urchins in order to help restore a more natural balance in the water that allows kelp forests to return.

Northern Norway has lost some 80% of its kelp forests over the last 50 years, partly due to an over abundance of native urchins, which have become prolific in the face of fators including predator overfishing and climate change.

‘The Otter was originally developed to map the sea floor,’ explains Priou. ‘What we’re doing here using it to record sea floor data, but also what's going on in the water column. That is something new. When we send sound into the ocean, we get everything that's in the water column – fish, plankton, the seabed and some noise as well,’ continues Priou, who came to the project from a background in fish and acoustics. ‘It is more complicated than this but usually, the sounds you don’t want are discarded and the data is used to map the sea floor. We want to use it to also monitor the return of kelp.’

Because there currently isn’t much kelp around Tromsø, where the Ocean Green project is taking place, Priou explains that he has been mapping areas that are mostly urchin barrens – but is also developing the tools and analysis methods to manage kelp in the future. ‘I'm trying to find some areas where there is some kelp, so that we can work on the methodology and have an idea of what to expect when we begin to see the restoration we expect.’

So far, the Otter has mapped – and Priou has reported on – an area around 700m by 1 km. ‘The goal is to map kelp – to create maps of the density of returning forests.’ To do this, he sent the Otter into areas that volunteers have restored by hand. ‘We send sound into the ocean and get a raw output from the instrument that covers everything in the water column. The first step is then to clean this data, to remove unwanted echoes.’

Capturing density from the echo sounder is not straightforward, he explains. ‘The way we usually evaluate density is through extremely fine-resolution imagery, where we could almost count single kelp.’ In reality though, he says this is not doable because of the simple fact that kelp moves in the water column and even an air bubble within the forest can impact the echo. The solution ‘is to take a small volume and study the echo within that, meaning that this back scatter would become representative of kelp. It requires some careful work.’

The size of the data set also poses a challenge. ‘It is a gigantic data set – probably the largest I've worked with. We’re talking about several hundreds of gigabytes.’ At the moment, that data is just point data – depth and coordinates – but Priou sees potential to develop it in a lot of different visual ways – including the possibility of 3D mapping.

Because what Priou is doing is relatively new, it is also being backed up by the work of human divers. At the pilot area, this has been done by Camilla With Fagerli and the team from niva, another Ocean Green partner. They have been conducting ‘ground truth’ research designed to assess the accuracy of the echo data – to ‘estimate or detect the kelp forest and the biomass of the kelp when the harvest is done,’ she explains.

Having been to both the pilot site – where an overabundance of urchins means there is no longer any kelp – and a restored site, Fagerli talks about how drastically different the two areas are. ‘It’s two very different environments. In the area where we will test the harvester, we were diving with a frame that we put out every second meter for 60 meters, counting everything we saw – and it was urchins, maybe a few snails, maybe some blue mussels and nothing more. It's not very diverse. It's very heterogenic with quite a high density of sea urchins and it was a quick count.

‘The day after, we did this same thing in the small area where volunteers have restored the kelp forest. Even though it's only 18 months since the first kelp returned, it's already very different. We dived for just six frames but it took two hours to record every species we saw.’

New method for autonomous echo sounder offers scientists alternative view into the water column – as well as the sea floor

Ocean Green scientists adapting ocean floor mapping to track kelp restoration 

When director and wildlife cinematographer Ismaele Tortella moved from Italy to Norway, it was in pursuit of an encounter with a wolffish, an apex predator that lives in the kelp forests of the north. When he got there however, he found a problem: urchin barrens.

His documentary, 

, tells the story of Tortella’s move to Northern Norway and his dive into the world of urchin removal and kelp restoration – all with the elusive wolffish in mind.

That documentary, with support from Ocean Green partner Rissa Citizen Science, is being shown at the 

 in October. After the screening, which seeks to highlight how Northern Norway’s kelp forests have been replaced by urchin barrens – and what is being done to bring these essential habitats back to life – underwater cameraman Tortella will join Rissa CS director Delphin Ruché for a talk with the audience.

The Stone Biter really puts the spotlight on kelp, highlighting just how vital these beautiful forests are to Norway’s waters, says Dagny-Elise Anastassiou, chief impact officer at Ava Ocean and project lead for Ocean Green.

‘We talk so much about the urchin barrens and there’s so little kelp left in some places that you do need to bring the focus back to why we’re doing this – and that is to restore Northern Norway’s hugely important kelp forests,’ she says.

As well as showcasing the wonder of a returning kelp forest, Anastassiou points to the cumulative effect a documentary like this can have. It will also be aired for some 80 students at 

 in October. ‘Ocean literacy is an important element in the Ocean Green project and, along with the hands-on citizen science work that Rissa CS does, documentaries like this really expand our reach, helping even more people understand their connection to the sea.’

The urchin-kelp problem that Northern Norway is grappling with is not unique. From California to New Zealand, along coasts around the world, overfishing of urchin predators has led to an abundance of urchins. These voracious creatures eat their way through once dense kelp forests – leaving barren seascapes in their wake – and this is not the only stressor threatening kelp forests, explains Aaron Eger, founder and programme director at the 

.

‘Kelp faces two main stressors: kelp likes cold water so warming oceans is one problem – either a chronic, slower warming or acute warming, in the form of the sudden heatwave spikes that we’ve seen more often in recent years. Sometimes coupled with that is an over-abundance of sea urchins, which can be caused by the warming water or by a lack or urchin predators often due to overfishing.’

A loss of kelp can even change the way that urchins feed, continues Eger. ‘As they lose kelp, they go from a more passive feeding mode to a more active feeding mode, creating this negative spiral.’

Through the KFA, Eger and his team work towards a number of goals: the KFA connects interested parties involved in kelp research, protection and restoration – from small actors up to national level policy makers – with a goal of shared knowledge and an avoidance of repeated mistakes. It also lobbies on behalf of these underwater forests, working to keep kelp on the radar as much as possible. Eger talks about the alliance’s efforts to get recognition for the kelp problem and how it is working to encourage policymakers to incorporate kelp into their local, regional and national strategies.

At perhaps the most local level, this lobbying comes down to everyday perceptions: ‘many people don’t even know what kelp is. And if they do, they often have a negative perception because maybe it’s washed up on the beach or they touch it as they swim – it’s slimy and they’re grossed out. People don’t know how important kelp is in coastal food webs, local biodiversity, coastal economies.’


Documentaries like The Stone Biter help bring kelp into the spotlight, replacing negative perceptions through the awe and beauty that few get to experience without going into the water. Increasingly though, Ruché and Rissa CS are turning the abstract into something tangible for more and more people, through the citizen science work the NGO does on a regular basis. Taking volunteers into the water around Tromsø, the organisation already restored a very visible area in the city. ‘Because we purposely restored just one side of the jetty, and because of the location of the site – part of a new promenade being created by the city to help reconnect people with the water – people can see the difference that urchin removal makes on their daily walk,’ explains Ruché. ‘On one side it is still an urchin barren. On the other, there is this incredible kelp forest already thriving.’



Rissa CS recently began work at a new site in Telegrafbukta

, which he hopes will expand the opportunities for urchin removal. As Rissa CS’s work has expanded, so too have the number of ‘Kelpers’ that come along to help out. The most recent urchin removal day brought in around 50 volunteers, says Ruché.

Although the objective at these events is urchin removal, he stresses the need to keep the project’s end goal in mind. ‘Kelp restoration is what we’re working towards, even though we spend so much time focused on urchin removal,’ he says. ‘This documentary really showcases kelp and the vital work these forests do as nurseries for diverse species, as carbon sinks and as natural coastal defence systems. It also shows people the beauty of these underwater rainforests.’

It also serves to expand Ocean Green’s literacy goals, he continues. ‘Most impressive to me so far has been the community that we’ve created,’ says Ruché. ‘It’s fantastic to see people come along – some know very little about urchins or kelp, many have never been in the water before. They leave the experience as part of our community and with a far better understanding of what’s happening below the water. This is the kind of ocean literacy we want to spread even further with The Stone Biter.’


Even with teams of up to 50 people or more going into the water to remove urchins, Northern Norway’s barrens remain huge. ‘Hand removal is a great showcase tool, with proven results, but Ocean Green is taking that further. We are using our technology to deliver the largest-scale urchin removal system to date,’ says Anastassiou. And, given the global nature of the urchin-kelp problem, she believes Ocean Green has potential to go far beyond the north.

‘The technology we’re using in Ocean Green is itself adapted from Ava Ocean’s unique gentle scallop fishing methods,’ she explains. ‘And we’re working hard to get an urchin harvester out that can remove these creatures at scale. This is essential if we’re to make any real headway against the many thousands of hectares of urchin barrens in northern Norway, though we also know the problem is about much more than simple urchin removal.

‘Our hope is that the Ocean Green solution could one day help others in their kelp restoration,’ she adds.


Ocean Green partner Rissa Citizen Science brings ocean literacy to life with screenings of new kelp forest documentary from Ismaele Tortella

The Stone Biter: kelp regeneration steps out of the water with new documentary 

‘We’ve been looking at the impact of our urchin biostimulant on lettuce for 67 days now,’ says Abirami Ramu Ganesan, a research scientist with NIBIO, talking mid-April. Her work has a dual focus: on food production and society as well as biomarine resource valorisation – disciplines that come together on the Ocean Green project.


‘What we’ve found is a significant increase in biomass production compared to the control – and compared to a seaweed-based extract as well,’ she says.

The results point to the urchin biostimulant as a highly effective growth enhancer. At the right concentration, the urchin biostimulant performed as well as, and in some cases even better than, the commercial product, though the commercial one was more consistent overall. Such a marked improvement in yield suggests strong potential for scalable, sustainable agricultural applications.

This difference is clear to see from photos of the lettuce Ganesan has been growing in her lab in Bodø, more than 1,000 km north of Oslo – and some 70 km north of the Arctic Circle – where she explains that the team chose lettuce largely because it was likely to grow well in the limited space of the lab.


There is another factor too. Ralf Rautenberger, another research scientist at NIBIO, explains that, up in the north of Norway in particular – where people spend multiple months of the year shrouded in night – the choice, supply and quality of fresh vegetables leaves room for improvement.

‘Here in the north we don’t have any farmer’s markets, for example,’ says Rautenberger, ‘and there isn’t always a huge variety available, so green-leaf lettuce is a great choice for us to work on’.



At the moment, iceberg is one of the more commonly found lettuce options – but it is also one of the least nutritious lettuce varieties. On top of that, there is evidence of a global reduction in the nutrition we get from fruit and vegetables, something that goes hand in hand with the need to find new fertiliser and biostimulant sources. .

‘The range of what we eat needs to be expanded – if only for nutritional reasons. So, if you could introduce a new vegetable for Norwegians to eat, then green lettuce is a good choice,’ says Rautenberger.

It is also a theme tied to much wider issues. There are the sustainability questions around the global fertiliser supply chain as well as the impact of geopolitics here. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for example, sent global fertiliser and food markets into turmoil, with fertiliser prices remaining high. Diversification is needed, home-grown solutions, derived from a source that needs managing – such as northern Norway’s urchin barrens – presents a great opportunity to tick multiple boxes with a single, spiky pest.


The research to develop biostimulants from the urchins harvested as part of the Ocean Green are still in the early stages with a lot to be uncovered. Ganesan explains, for example, that she is also looking at the shelf life of the biostimulant, which must be reliably stabilised in order to begin thinking about any scale up.

All this has implications that go to the very core of the Ocean Green project. ‘The most important thing is to stabilise the chemical components of the urchin,’ says Ganesan. And that influences the way that these creatures can be harvested as well as how they’re stored on the vessel or how long they can spend between ocean and lab.

This is what the Ocean Green project is all about: bringing funding opportunities that secure longevity for a project developing a new, circular economy with urchins at its core.

For Dagny-Elise Anastassiou, chief impact officer at Ava Ocean and management lead for the Ocean Green project, this latest development comes back to the ‘poetry of the Ocean Green story’.


‘We have Ava Ocean – a fishing company – trying to play its part in correcting something that our industry helped to break in the first place. But it was not just overfishing that damaged our coastal marine ecosystems. Another culprit is runoffs from the agricultural sector, with fertilisers leading to overgrowth of algae that can have potentially disastrous consequences for local biodiversity.

‘By using the urchins from the fishery to offer substitutes for these products, we add value both financially and ecologically.’

Then, there is the circular economy focus of the project.

‘When you remove urchins for kelp restoration, you address the cause but are left with a huge volume of urchins biomass,’ explains Anastassiou. ‘Instead of wasting these urchins, we are turning them into a valuable resource. Being able to produce fertiliser alternatives is one way of applying a zero-waste approach to one of the causes of kelp deforestation. Ideally, if we want the trifecta, the harvested area would be banned from fishing to allow the larger fish to establish themselves. but that’s a whole other Pandora's box in Norway.



Locally produced biostimulant could deliver broad benefits

From sea to lettuce to better nutrition for Norwegians: early tests show biomass boost with urchin derivatives 

Clearing urchins from bigger spaces, watching kelp forests return and bringing fish and other species along as well. These are the things Delphin Ruché, founder of Tromsø-based non-profit Rissa Citizen Science, talks about when asked what his goals are.


And those ambitions are being realised. Ruché, supported by a small army of volunteers, has been working on a 150-meter-long jetty in the city for some time, removing urchins from one side, watching life replace barrens. After success along a jetty in Tromsø, Ocean Green’s citizen science partner Rissa Citizen Science has broken new ground – or new water perhaps – in Telegrafbukta.


The team’s first real expedition at Telegrafbukta, a wide beach and local recreation area, saw nine volunteers join Ruché in removing more than 5,000 urchins, though he stresses that it’s not about the numbers. Instead it is about the return of essential kelp forests, the boost to biodiversity, the science and the community.

Rissa CS work at Telegrafbukta builds on the success it has already had along a jetty in the city, where urchin removal along just one side highlights in stark contrast the difference between an urchin barren and what a returning kelp forest looks like. Speaking to those who have taken part in that restoration, the sense of community really comes through.


‘You go out there and it’s just this really positive experience – almost an antidote to the huge problems we’re facing on climate. Whether you’re in the water or just making waffles, it’s fun and you’re making a difference for your community,’ says Jamie Hollander, an American who was in Tromsø on a Fulbright Norway research scholarship to investigate methane emissions from glacial and permafrost landscapes in Svalbard.


‘I do climate science, I study the carbon cycle and melting glaciers. It’s easy to get lost in the feeling that there’s not a lot we can do. But in getting involved in Rissa CS, you’re seeing the difference as you’re making it. You start to recognise people and develop this feeling that you're working towards something together.’


Ruché says the project simply would not be possible without the volunteers that Rissa CS works with.


‘Lots of people come but it’s not just that,’ he says. ‘People are coming back and this is creating a community with a sense of belonging in sharing this adventure and of having achieved something – and that is fantastic.’


While the purpose of each meet up is urchin removal, the set up makes Rissa CS’ work accessible for all. Hollander did go into the water for example – something she describes as an incredible but challenging experience for her – but ultimately felt her skills were best used on land, in particular at the waffle maker.


Ruché also talks about the many ways people can get involved. There are parents who come along with their kids for example, with Ruché explaining that ‘we use a remote operated vehicle, or ROV, for people who are too young to go in the water, so they can still explore and have fun, they see what the others are seeing in the water.’

But to remove the urchins, some people do have to go into the water. Ruché says there is no need for previous diving experience, with most people freediving or snorkelling close to shore. ‘We have a lot of people who have never been in the water before – they’re not marine biologists, they’re not divers. But they’re curious – they want to see the situation for themselves and to experience being in the cold water.’


There are also some experienced divers in the community. One is Michael Paul Morreau, a lecturer in philosophy at The Arctic University of Norway, and a New Zealander who arrived in Tromsø via the US. He found out about the work Rissa CS does after attending a lecture on Norway’s kelp problem as a representative of a local diving club. ‘We have a very similar problem in New Zealand, caused by over fishing,’ he notes.


Even as an experienced diver, Morreau says urchin removal helps hone your skills: there’s a lot to learn around buoyancy, technique and positioning. And like Hollander, he talks about the community spirit as being a real draw. Everyone has their role, from providing warm drinks to people leaving the freezing fjord to those who help carry gear or, like Hollander, work the waffle grill. Armed with a dry suit, Morreau plays his part, diving in deeper ‘areas where the snorkelers might struggle’.

The urchin-kelp battle is a long fight. Morreau talks of removing maybe 500 an hour ‘or more if I get mad because one pierced a glove,’ he jokes. Ruché has easily removed 1,000 on a quick check up at the jetty without any volunteers to support the work. And the work is constant. As part of the Ocean Green project, Rissa CS represents the consortium’s citizen science work – which includes educating people on the need to restore Northern Norway’s kelp forests and getting them into the water to help in the removal process as well as monitoring biodiversity below water. But more urchins need to be removed – and faster.


‘What’s needed for long-term restoration is a large-scale solution,’ explains Dagny-Elise Anastassiou, chief impact officer at Ava Ocean and project lead for Ocean Green. ‘And this solution must be something that works in shallow waters, that can handle tides and large changes in weather, that can go on uneven, large rocky areas, on bedrock, on sand. At the same time, it must be gentle enough and bring minimal disruption.’


Ava Ocean is currently adapting the technology it developed to gently harvest scallops from the Barents Sea – a fishery closed for 30 years due to over fishing. ‘This technology will allow the scale needed to make a real and lasting difference in the urchin-kelp fight,’ says Anastassiou, ‘though we’ll always need organisations like Rissa CS to keep banging the drum to make sure that people understand just how valuable our underwater ecosystems are.’


Local non-profit is getting people into the water and into kelp restoration

Breaking new water: Ocean Green partner Rissa Citizen Science begins work at new site in Tromsø

Dagny-Elise Anastassiou, chief impact officer at Ava Ocean and project lead for Ocean Green, joined 100,000 visitors, 15,000 participants and more than 60 heads of state in Nice, southern France, for the United Nation’s third Ocean Conference.

Co-hosted by France and Costa Rica, the event closed with a number of pledges the UN describes as ‘ambitious’. These include a European Commission investment of €1 bn to support ocean conservation, science and sustainable fishing, a pledge by French Polynesia to create the world’s largest marine protected area and a commitment from New Zealand to strengthen ocean governance in the Pacific. Elsewhere, a 37-coutry coalition launched an initiative to tackle underwater noise pollution.

But private industry was notably absent from the conversations, says Anastassiou as she shares some quick-fire thoughts direct from Nice.


How would you sum up your UNOC experience?

Positive but logistically challenging. It was amazing to see the enthusiasm: so many people showed up from all sorts of countries, including some incredible speakers. The Crown Prince of Norway spoke at a couple of talks for example – he really showed excitement about the ocean space.

The logistics were a challenge however. The Blue Zone – for governments and accredited organisations – and the Green Zone – an open exhibition space – were a 25-minute-plus walk from each other, in the hot Mediterranean sun. That meant people were often late and my carefully planned schedule didn’t really work.

And even though the speakers were great, it was often the same speech with different terminology. We know about climate change and biodiversity loss and we know we want healthier oceans – but we need bold debate that asks daring questions to talk about why we’re not achieving the change we need.


What would you have liked to see more of?

We definitely need to get private industry involved in these discussions, rather than sidelining voices that are being depicted as part of the problem only. Ava Ocean and Ocean Green is just one example of how the industrial fishing industry can be a force for sustainable change, delivering partnerships with science and bringing innovation to a global food problem, a fishing problem and a marine biodiversity problem.


In the same way that COP is criticised for being too focused on private interest, this conference went too far the other way. Even coming from a firm like Ava Ocean, with a sustainable model that has reopened a long-shuttered fishery, I felt uncomfortable telling people I was from the fishing industry.


We need to find that middle ground that doesn’t involve going in guns blazing. It would be great to see some closed debates, where people can speak freely and know they won’t be quoted – and won’t be attacked on social media. Imagine bringing the frankness of the LinkedIn comments section to the stage instead of a series of panels discussing topics we’re already in agreement on.

There was a quote I heard repeated on probably a panel a day – probably because it really sums up what’s needed: If you want to go fast, you go low; if you want to go far, you go together.


Ultimately the challenges we face in the ocean need private collaboration and innovation alongside governments, NGOs and science. And we need to talk more about what collaboration actually looks like for it to work.


I had the chance to meet the iconic oceanographer and marine biologist Sylvia Earle at an event hosted by the Blue Marine Foundation. She is such a huge inspiration to me, and meeting her in person was a highlight for sure.


How would you sum up the conversations you had with other attendees?


There was definitely interest in Ava Ocean technology but that was backed by scepticism too. It is clearly a struggle for people to equate industrial fishing with sustainable practices – even if we know we need more protein from the ocean.


Where did Ocean Green come into the conversation?


Ocean Green piqued the interest of most people I met. Everyone was speaking about 30x30: the idea of protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030. Ocean green is really unique, in these conversations because it’s one of the few restoration projects that is able to approach the issue with an industry and business case. Our sustainable business model that uses new or undervalued marine resources with the potential for a cascading effect for biodiversity is something that really sparks a lot of interest.


What was the most exciting outcome of UNOC for you?


The European Ocean Pact. It’s the equivalent of the EU Green Deal – but for the ocean. The Green Deal did a lot to unlock funding and make space for innovation. So I’m excited to see how a similar plan for the ocean will translate into action, funding and regulation.


Ava Ocean recently took part in the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, which saw the seafood industry notably absent from discussions and events concerning the future of fishing and seafood. 

"Where are the industry voices?" A UN Ocean Conference summary

In northern Norway, native kelp has been decimated by the march of urchins, a species whose voracious appetite and over-abundance as predators have been over-fished has turned once-kelp-green waters into barrens devoid of their natural biodiversity.

This is the balance that the Ocean Green consortium is seeking to restore. 

 project is a world-first in its scale, scope and ambition, with plans to restore kelp forests over a large scale and for the long term.


“We know that restoring the kelp forests of northern Norway will provide a huge boost to local biodiversity,” says Dagny-Elise Anastassiou, chief impact officer at Ava Ocean, lead on the Ocean Green Project. “We have seen how quickly kelp returns when you clear urchins – and the ocean life comes with it.


“That alone is of huge value but we also know that healthy kelp forests act as a nature-based sea defence system. They offer carbon sequestration. And, by establishing a new urchin fishery to drive a zero-waste, circular economy for clearing urchin barrens, Ocean Green is also delivering social benefits to the communities it serves. These are the kinds of tangible, holistic and long-term benefits that should come with any kind of credit system – be that carbon removal or biodiversity. We should be delivering on all fronts.”

Anastassiou stresses the need for a robust system that makes investment easier and more transparent. “Carbon and biodiversity credits are a real win-win for hard-to-abate emissions – but they must deliver. High-quality credits allow companies to invest in sustainability projects like Ocean Green while also offering an essential funding stream that offers stability and longevity to the projects themselves, allowing them to achieve more over the longer term.”

Nata Tavonvunchai, a sustainability consultant with Across Nature, which works with Ocean Green has been exploring the possibilities of self-reliance that come from the credit system.


The idea of biodiversity credits is quite new, she explains “but they offer something more tangible than the traditional carbon-focus, which is harder to visualise. With biodiversity credits, we’re looking at species count and species diversity. We’re looking at habitat complexity and structure.”


Tavonvunchai talks about the ‘permanence’ of the solutions being offered on the credits market. And this is where the idea of carbon credits 2.0 comes in. “Previously, the focus was really on the carbon, with social or benefits seen as add ons. But the approach should be holistic and broader benefits should come as standard.”

“With the Ocean Green project, what we are really emphasising is the potential for permanence,” she continues. Though incredibly important, the lifespan of a kelp plant does impact its carbon sequestration abilities – with further research still ongoing in areas such as 

the role of kelp detritus in the deep sea

. But, as Tavonvunchai points out, “we’re looking to make sure the biodiversity and social benefits of the Ocean Green project continue. We’re focused on that longevity and that tangibility.”

Carbon credits are essentially a system designed to compensate for unavoidable emissions while companies work become greener. But some critics raise questions about the quality or impact of some of the credits traditionally offered.


Increasingly however, it is being recognised that certain sectors – particularly those with ‘hard-to-abate’ emissions, such as from essential activities – will be unable to meet their net-zero goals without some form of carbon credit system. Tavonvunchai also points out that, because of the newness of biodiversity credits, these novel credits offer an opportunity to learn from past criticisms and deliver an even higher impact.


As the sector matures, moving into areas such as carbon removal as well as biodiversity credits, experts from corporate advisers such as Nasdaq and McKinsey to the 

 agree that the credits system is an essential cog in the global transition – and what is needed now is a new generation of solutions that come with a much broader scope than just carbon.


Anticipated demand for high-quality credits far outstrips what is currently on offer in the carbon market and there is an urgent need for creative, high-quality solutions that deliver across multiple challenges and for the long term. Growing demands from investors – including the world’s largest money manager 

, which has been spearheading biodiversity reporting by its investee companies – is further driving the potential for biodiversity credits as a sustainability solution.

One of the goals of Ocean Green is to become a self-funded project. Ocean Green was awarded NOK 47 million from the Norwegian government Green Platform grant to run for three years but is also looking at how it can open an entirely new fishery to further fund its work.


As Ocean Green works to remove urchins at scale, allowing kelp to return to Norway’s northern waters, scientists within the consortium are looking at economically viable products that can be developed through zero-waste solutions. Those products will help drive the project forward, offering durability as well as a template for others 


Carbon and biodiversity credits offer yet another funding source: “These credits are meant to provide a sustainable, long-term, independent source of financing for projects like Ocean Green,” says Tavonvunchai. The idea is essentially a virtuous circle, where funding from such credits drives the growth of regenerative, carbon sequestering projects that boost biodiversity.

 and (at the time) projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 39.4% from 2024 to 2030. There is a huge pot of money with the potential to be funneled into projects that do long-lasting environmental good.


Kelp is something of a wonder plant. From a natural coastal defence system to a foundational species that provides shelter and a place to grow for a myriad of ocean life, these underwater rainforests also serve as essential carbon sinks.

Carbon markets 2.0: How the Ocean Green project fills a need far beyond carbon capture

Ocean Green project brings together diverse minds to get creative on urchin-kelp challenge


"An urchin does not want to be removed from its rock or it’s place on the sea floor," states Terje Stokkevåg, senior R&D engineer with Ava Ocean and one of the brains behind a tool that has already revolutionised scallop fishing and that is now being adapted to solve Northern Norway’s urchin problem.


This might seem like an obvious statement but is just one of the many challenges that engineers, trying to remove millions of these creatures, must grapple with.


Stokkevåg talks of having to ‘get inside the mind of an urchin and think like an urchin.’ What is also apparent is that you have to think outside the box.


The Ocean Green project is a diverse consortium and what Stokkevåg and the other engineers bring is a diversity of thinking, married up with experts on conservation, restoration, fisheries and more.


Stokkevåg example, came to Ava Ocean and came to the world of scallops, urchins and kelp restoration not from an ocean-going role but from something drastically different: the Texas oil and fracking industry. What’s clear is that his experience in R&D – 

an area the UN says is hugely underfunded around ocean projects

 – means he sometimes takes an unusual route to his goal. For example, Stokkevåg talks of having employed ‘a helicopter engine and the world’s largest hydraulic power pack’ in his fracking work and, while his passion for a far greener project is clear, his ingenuity remains as crucial to its success as before.


So what is his approach to urchin removal? "You have to have a game plan," he says, talking about the things you might expect – 3D printers and scale tanks – to the far-less expected: dump trucks to hand mixers.


He is Doc Brown from Back to the Future, working through any way to harvest urchins in order to restore kelp for future generations.


He has weighted ‘urchins’ made from a type of rubber that, in the last round of testing, could be harvested at a rate of around 70% by their scale model tool. But for him, that’s not enough. "The goal is to make it 100% in a controlled environment," he explains. "Once you have that in the aquarium, and it is as good as possible, that is when you take it out into mother nature – because that’s where you’re going to face the real obstacles."


These obstacles come in many forms. They might be predictable – "managing the GPS-controlled positioning of the vessel to the impact of its thrusters and how water currents might shift the harvester". Then there are also the potential for challenges that you haven’t fully anticipated. "You need to be prepared for everything – including all the things that won’t happen," he says.

Of course, if the goal was simply to remove the urchins that have grazed down kelp forests to urchin barrens covering an estimated equivalent of one million football fields, that would be a less complicated task.


But while the spotlight is on the urchin at the moment, Ocean Green is about much more than establishing a fishery and the economic force that a circular economy can provide. The project is ultimately about kelp.


"We need to keep focus on the fact that what we’re trying to do here is restore the kelp forests that used the thrive here," says Dagny-Elise Anastassiou, chief impact officer at Ava Ocean, whose job it is to oversee the consortium and make sure that, as urchins are gathered, processed and turned into economically viable products, the surrounding environment remains undamaged and allowed to flourish.


"This is about bringing back biodiversity," she explains. "We know we’ll see an abundance of life return once the kelp is allowed to grow back on these barrens," adds Anastassiou, "but that is a challenge in itself. We need to make sure that, by harvesting these urchins, we do not damage the ecosystem, that we do not further impact the local biodiversity. Together with engineers like Terje, we need to monitor and assess the impact of the urchin removal process."


And that means that, even as the urchins cling to their spot in the barren and Stokkevåg uses his ingenuity to get inside the mind of these spiky, voracious creatures and remove them in their millions, it must all be done with delicacy and balance – with kelp and biodiversity in mind as well.


Where engineering and conservation come together to solve Northern Norway’s urchin problem

‘You’ve got to get inside the mind of an urchin’

Being endorsed under the Marine Life 2030 action stream, the Ocean Green project is among a select group of leading global initiatives recognised for tackling critical ocean challenges.

The Ocean Green project is tackling the devastating impact of sea urchin barrens in Northern Norway – areas where overpopulations of sea urchins have destroyed vital kelp forests and unbalanced ecosystems. By using Ava Ocean’s innovative seabed harvesting technology for efficient harvesting or urchins, the project aims to restore these crucial ecosystems while also creating a sustainable economic value chain from the harvested urchins.

UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030)

 is a global initiative aiming to foster scientific collaboration and promoting the sustainable management of the oceans. It focuses on generating transformative ocean science solutions for sustainable development, connecting people and the ocean.


The Ocean Green project has been endorsed under 

 actions which aims to establish a globally coordinated system to deliver actionable, transdisciplinary knowledge of ocean life to those who need it, promoting human well-being, sustainable development, and ocean conservation.


The Decade’s endorsement process is highly selective, recognizing projects that demonstrably contribute to its ambitious goals, including open data principles, co-design, and user engagement. The Ocean Green project's endorsement signifies its alignment with these core values and its potential for substantial global impact.

Ocean Green: Restoring Kelp Forests and Creating Economic Opportunity


Part funded by a NOK 47 million grant from Norway's Green Platform, the 

 project is a collaborative endeavour, bringing together a consortium of industry, research institutions, and local communities, including NIBIO, NIVA, Akvaplan Niva, Hofseth Biocare, and Across Nature. This multi-sector approach is vital to tackling the complex challenge of restoring kelp ecosystems and to create long-term, economically viable solutions that will make a positive impact.


Ocean Green is repurposing Ava Ocean's patented, non-invasive, seabed harvesting technology to efficiently remove sea urchins from the Tromsø area in Northern Norway. This technology, already proven successful in Arctic scallop fishing, will be adapted for the careful and efficient harvesting of sea urchins, even the smallest, which is crucial for kelp forest regeneration.


It is estimated that Norway has lost more than 80 percent of its kelp forests due to invasive urchin populations in the past decade. Kelp forests are vital parts of coastal ecosystems, providing nursery grounds for all kinds of fish, sequestering carbon, and protecting coastlines from erosion.


The project goes beyond simply removing the urchins. It aims to create a sustainable, circular economy by developing commercially viable products from these often overlooked creatures. This innovative approach addresses environmental issues while creating new economic opportunities for local communities.

UN endorsement highlighting the opportunities of restorative fisheries


Dagny-Elise Anastassiou, Ocean Green Project Manager and Chief Impact Officer at Ava Ocean, emphasized the significance of the UN endorsement of the project:


“Receiving this recognition from the UN means an incredible amount to us and confirms that what we are trying to accomplish in the Ocean Green project is of great importance and interest beyond just what we are doing in Tromsø. There is an urgent need globally for scalable solutions to combat sea urchin deserts and restore these vital ecosystems.


"It will be a total game-changer in the ocean restoration space if we manage to revitalize the kelp forest by developing a sustainable and regenerative fishery of these sea urchins, which will benefit both nature and local communities."


“We are thrilled to endorse the Ocean Green project as part of the Ocean Decade,” said Alison Clausen, Deputy Coordinator of the Ocean Decade. “By combining ecosystem restoration, innovative technologies, and community-driven solutions for kelp forest restoration, this initiative exemplifies the holistic approach needed to tackle pressing ocean challenges. We look forward to seeing its impact inspire similar efforts worldwide.”

The three-year project, which commenced early 2024, aims to demonstrate a scalable and replicable model for sea urchin barren restoration, inspiring similar initiatives globally.


The Ocean Green regenerative fishery and kelp restoration project in Northern Norway, led by Ava Ocean, has received official endorsement from the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030).

UN Ocean Decade endorses Ava Ocean’s kelp restoration project

For Dagny-Elise Anastassiou, chief impact officer at Ava Ocean, the Ocean Green project is an opportunity to help solve a problem seen in waters around the world, with sea urchin proliferation decimating kelp forests.
Having seen how Ava Ocean’s gentle scallop technology could re-open a fishery in the Barents Sea that had been shut for three decades, Anastassiou was confident it could be adapted to other sea life.

“I come from a research and conservation background and spent many years doing coral restoration and sea grass monitoring in the Caribbean, where I got really into the potential of kelp – especially when I moved back to Europe,” she explains. “Then, when I started with Ava Ocean, we began looking at the potential of not just scallops, but also marine resources lower down the seafood chain.”


Reading about the ‘urgent’ urchin problem in Norway – where some 80% of kelp forests have given way to urchin barrens – Anastassiou felt confident the firm could help. The problem however, was that while there is a market for scallops, the general response to the idea of harvesting urchins was ‘who in their right mind is going to pay us to do this?’


As she dived further into the world of kelp and urchins, Anastassiou says she came to understand that urchins today have no real value. What they needed was a product. But to invest in developing a product, you need to be able to harvest a good supply of urchins. So who goes first? It was a catch-22.

“We realised that we have to do it at the same time,” she explains. That was the beginning of the Ocean Green project, where a consortium of partners brings together industry minds, researchers, individuals that have been at the forefront of the urchin problem for decades.


As the project lead, Ava Ocean is key to getting enough urchins out of the water so that the other partners can do their parts in product development or marketing. As well as project coordination and management (work package one), Ava Ocean is the lead on work package two: Novel sea-urchin harvest technology. Having looked at numerous restoration attempts, Anastassiou says “the problem isn’t understanding what happens when urchins are removed: You remove urchins, kelp comes back.


“The issue is finding a large-scale technical solution that can go in shallow waters, that can handle tides and large changes in weather, that can go on uneven, large rocky areas, on bedrock, on sand. You need to be able to handle more than one type of substrate.” At the same time, this technology must be gentle enough and bring minimal disruption.


“It’s not just conservationists and researchers coming to the table,” she continues, pointing out for example that Ava Ocean’s engineer is a diver who comes from the fracking industry. The chicken-and-egg, ‘who goes first’ problem meant Ocean Green needed minds from outside the box – features Anastassiou says makes the project unique – and more likely to succeed.


Today, as Ava Ocean prepares its first pilot harvesters, Anastassiou is working on attracting new sources of funding for Ocean Green, which received 47 million NOK from the Norwegian government’s Green Platform to run for three years. She feels that regulation is going to galvanise businesses to get involved.


 came into play this year and that is a pretty big game changer,’ she says. ‘We’re going to see a lot of interest and we’re going to see a lot more funding become available – and it always comes down to funding.”


The flip side is that regulation around conservation is also set to pose challenges. “If an urchin barren is inside a marine conservation area, what does that mean for potential restoration efforts,” she wonders. “We’re talking about restoration by starting a new fishery. That’s not been done before.”


Ava Ocean, which is leading the project, is responsible for developing technology to gently but efficiently harvest urchins; 

 are fronting the research and development of urchin-derived products; Hofseth Biocare will be responsible for the marketing- efforts of those products. Wandering Owl contribute expertise to meet the social impacts elements of Ocean Green.


We’re talking about restoration by starting a new fishery: The large-scale ambitions of Ava Ocean

Meet the Ocean Green partners: Ava Ocean

Hartvig Christie has been in the urchin-management business for a long time, getting to work on his first kelp-restoration project back in 1988. He has since been involved in projects that support

 predation or that use quicklime to kill the creatures

 that are decimating northern Norway’s kelp forests.

Now, Christie, a marine biologist, is part of the NIVA team that makes up part of the Ocean Green project, bringing with him decades of urchin-kelp experience. And after all these years, the goal – and the challenges – remain the same. "The major task is to remove the sea urchins and help the kelp forest coming back," says Christie. "For our ocean, it's important to develop a tool or a method for removing the urchins – so that's the first challenge right now."


The loss of Amazon rainforests under water

Research that Christie worked on, published in 2021, put the realities of kelp-forest loss – and the potential held in their restoration – into a stark light, likening the loss of some 8,400 km2 of Norwegian kelp forests to Amazon deforestation, even though the two issues are worlds apart in terms of global attention.

"Norwegian kelp forests are important carbon sinks and nutrient filters, as well as focal points for high biodiversity and abundances of commercial fish species, generating an estimated €16.7 million per km2 per year," the researchers wrote. "In comparison, boreal forests are valued at about €0.24 million per km2, which makes kelp forests 70 times more valuable than their terrestrial counterparts."

They estimate that restoring the 5,000 km2 area ‘still dominated’ by urchin barrens would provide an extra €83.6 billion per year – a value they put at three times as high as all of Norway’s terrestrial forests combined.

"There is no doubt that if Norway lost all its trees today, there would be a public outcry over their disappearance and calls for immediate restoration actions; a perception that must be adopted for kelp forest ecosystems to firmly establish their conservation and restoration as an integral part on political agendas," wrote the researchers.


As part of the Ocean Green project, Christie and his colleagues at NIVA are responsible for work package three: the environmental impact assessment. This involves assessing not just the effectiveness of the tools developed by Ava Ocean in removing urchins but also their potential impact on non-target species and the surrounding habitat.

NIVA is currently working to identify grounds for urchin removal and will also be involved in monitoring progress as the project moves through urchin collection and into kelp restoration – something Christie explains often happens faster than you might expect.

"We have been very surprised about the recovery of the kelp because it's so efficient – even across really long distances." Christie points to examples in both open and more sheltered water where, if you’ve removed urchins sufficiently, researchers have found not only kelp spreading from further afield on the currents but also more kelp plants growing than would be usual. "Normally, in the kelp forest, you have about 10 adult kelp plants per square meter. But [we found one restored area] that had these very tiny juveniles and there were more than 400 per square meter."


Finding solutions for a worldwide problem

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