Tasmania’s kelp forests feel the impact of industry of climate change – Science

An ecosystem that once fizzed with life and supported a local industry has all but disappeared.

As a young man, Puck Vaughan would haul his boat to the shoreline and go fishing.

Offshore, he did not need to drop anchor. Instead, he would pull up fistfuls of kelp and tie his boat directly to fleshy strands that swirled on the surface.

Puck is a man of Tasmania’s central east coast. His local fishing haunts, near the town of Triabunna, once lay among some of the world’s most magnificent forests.

Puck Vaughan used to use the thick kelp strands as an anchor for his fishing boat.

But these were not the terrestrial…