Four organisations in Norway have teamed up to form Norwegian Marine Restoration (NoMaRe), a collaborative platform seeking to restore the more than 5,000 square kilometres of kelp forests that have been lost along the coast over the past decades.

NGO Bellona, non-profit Tarevoktere (Kelp Guardians), marine restoration startup Urchinomics, and International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) launched the initiative in Oslo on Wednesday.

“Kelp forest is a nature type that provides 29 times more ecosystem services per area than a rainforest, so without exaggerating I think we can say that this is one of the most serious ecosystem collapses in Europe,” Joakim Hauge, head of Bellona’s bio team, said in an announcement.

“A large-scale marine restoration of the Norwegian coast is required by 2030.”

Norway’s coast has seen a major sea urchin invasion since the 1970s, which the groups say have turned the country’s kelp forest into an underwater desert.

Led by Tarevoktere, activities have already started to restore the coast off of Tromsoe in northern Norway, but NoMaRe aims to drive much larger-scale action.

Brian Tsuyoshi Takeda, founder of Urchinomics, said the ecosystem collapse is also partially a result of overexploitation of Norway’s coastal marine areas, and that businesses must now contribute to the restoration efforts.

Climate and Environment Minister Anders Bjelland Eriksen participated at the NoMaRe launch event, but would not commit to government action to address the issue.

“Whether there will be a national strategy remains to be seen. I will present Norway’s plan for how we are going to meet the [Global Biodiversity Framework targets] later this year,” he said in the announcement.

“But what’s certain is that it is not enough to conserve nature, we must restore it as well. And we definitely need a systemic approach to how to work with restoration,” the minister added.

His government earlier this week issued a near-record 62 offshore oil exploration licences, and last week a vote in parliament made Norway the world’s first country to open up for deep sea mining.

In addition to facilitating increased funding of restoration work, NoMaRe will also seek to accelerate research, knowledge, and political action, said Bellona’s Hauge.

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