A kelp forest off Anacapa Island, Channel Islands National Park, California
© Ian Shive/Tandem Stills + Motio
A balance in motion. World Nature Conservation Day
Off Anacapa Island, California, the ocean grows its own forests. Within Channel Islands National Park—also known as the 'Galápagos of North America'—giant kelp stretches beyond 100 feet in length, forming buoyant ribbons lifted by air-filled bladders and anchored below by rootlike holdfasts.
Nothing sits still in this kelp-built vertical world: sunlight filters through the canopy, fronds sway with the surge, and fish thread between stalks like visible currents. Sea lions twist through the openings, sea urchins graze the floor, and every layer hums with activity. But even this fast-growing seaweed—able to add up to 2 feet a day—can vanish quickly. Heatwaves, ocean acidification, and changing currents can erase decades of growth in a few years, leaving open water where a bustling community once stood.
Observed each July 28, World Nature Conservation Day feels tangible here. Kelp doesn't just host life; it constructs ecosystems from the ground up and keeps them together—filtering water, storing carbon, and quietly stabilizing entire coastlines.
Related Images
Cumulus clouds over the Caribbean
Aerial view of the cherry laurel maze in Glendurgan Garden, Cornwall, England
Dr. Sylvia Earle explores Australia's Great Barrier Reef in a scene from 'Mission Blue'
A fossilized carboniferous fern
A Brandt's cormorant hunts for a meal in a school of Pacific chub mackerel beneath an oil rig off the coast of Los Angeles, California
Green sea turtle with sardines near Playa Grandi, Curaçao
Biorock artificial reef off the Gili Islands, Indonesia
Manatees in the Ichetucknee River in Florida
Bing Today Images
