“We geared up, squeezing into freediving wetsuits, and then we jumped in into the four-degree water,” says Dagny-Elise Anastassiou, Sustainability Manager at Ava Ocean, which is leading the multi-partner Ocean Green project around Tromsø.

Guided by Delphin Ruche from Wild Lab Projects, Anastassiou was in the water with the Ava Ocean technical development team led by Bjørn Roppen and engineer Terje Stokkavåg, to see not only the urchin barrens that Ocean Green is seeking to drive out, but also the creeping success of existing kelp restoration efforts.

Norway has seen some 80% of its kelp forests disappear over the last half century – a problem replicated around the world as these essential habitats are lost to changes in ocean environments. Around Tromsø, an explosion of native sea urchins that eat the kelp has created the ‘urchin barrens’ that Ocean Green is seeking to restore.

“On one side of the pier, there’s just all these urchins,” explains Anastassiou. “Then we swim around the corner and it’s almost completely restored. It was really beautiful, really colourful.” This restoration has been done by hand, taking the not-for-profit organization Wild Lab Projects many weeks and many volunteers to clear this one small area.

Wild Lab projects is part of the Ocean Green team and brings to the mix a focus on citizen science. Anastassiou and the team got to experience firsthand just how hard it is to stem the spread of these prolific sea urchins that are responsible for the widespread decimation of kelp forests around northern Norway.

“We were given hammers, and Delphin said, Have at it! Try to kill a few,” says Anastassiou. “You see how hard it is to remove these urchins – I was lucky to do maybe three or four in one breath. Meanwhile, I was thinking about how many thousands there were just around the jetty.”

Balance in the elements

In recognition of not just the need to restore the kelp forests but also the economic potential of the harvested urchins, the Ocean Green project won 47 million NOK in Green Platform funding from the Norwegian government last year. Now in the early stages, the project is set to run for at least three years.
Anastassiou explains the next steps.

“This trip highlighted how a one-size fits all approach won’t work,” she says. “When you look out at a fjord it’s hard to appreciate just how varied the seabed is. Being able to come up with a solution that can work across large, flat areas as well as small, dense, rocky areas is going to be a challenge. We also need a solution that can handle all the elements: we're on the Norwegian coast where you've got proper, natural elements that you're fighting against.”

This is also about balance. “These urchins are not alien and we need to harvest them without damaging anything else,” continues Anastassiou. “These are fragile ecosystems: you don’t want something too industrial but you need to be effective too. There are a lot of things at play.”

This is where the Ava Ocean technology comes in. The lead partner on the project made headlines when its patented, gentle harvesting solution saw it successfully petition to have the Barents Sea scallop fishery reopened after 30 years. That technology is now being adapted to harvest urchins instead – and Anastassiou reiterates the need for multiple solutions.

“Not only are we making technology for large-scale restoration, we are also designing something that locals, that citizen scientists, can use,” she explains. “We want something handheld but that is more effective than freediving with a hammer.”