Sussex Kelp Restoration Project

Kelp forests once stretched 40 km along Sussex’s coastline, providing shelter and nursery grounds for species like cuttlefish, lobster, sea-bream, and bass. They also help mitigate climate change by storing carbon, improving water quality, and reducing coastal erosion by absorbing ocean waves.

Since 1987, over 96% of Sussex’s kelp has been destroyed by trawling and human pressure. In 2019, the Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority proposed a byelaw to ban trawling across 300+ sq. km of seabed to reverse this decline.

Blue Marine supported the Help our Kelp campaign, garnering nearly 2,500 public supporters. In 2021, the byelaw was approved, creating one of England’s largest trawling-free inshore areas and the UK’s first kelp restoration project. Sir David Attenborough endorsed the campaign, calling it a ‘landmark decision’ for UK coastal management.

Blue Marine helped establish the Sussex Kelp Recovery Project, a partnership monitoring kelp restoration. The Sussex Kelp Recovery Project Progress and Impact Report 2021-2022 highlights progress.

In 2024, we conducted the fourth year of surveys to track biodiversity and crustacean fisheries recovery, discovering new species like Pacific oysters and King scallops and increases in Atlantic mackerel and mullets. These results suggest positive recovery, potentially benefiting apex predators.

Our crab and lobster surveys continued engagement with local fisheries, and we released a film showing how trawling bans support biodiversity, fisheries, and communities.

Despite the ban, sediment from land run-off and dredge-spoil disposal is reducing the light kelp needs to grow. To address this, Blue Marine led the first Sussex Sediment Sources and Impacts Workshop in 2021 to gather evidence, a Sussex Sediment Sea Users Survey and a report on Sussex Sediment Sources and Pathways. A second Sussex Sediment Monitoring and Adaptive Response Workshop was held in May 2023, with representatives from 27 organizations.

We are working with local communities to support low-impact fisheries. In Bognor, fishermen and councillors launched a fisheries renaissance to revive the town’s fishing industry– watch the start of their journey to bring Bognor Fishing Back from the Brink.  

In 2024, the Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority proposed a further trawling ban to cover 143 sq km in Beachy Head East Marine Conservation Zone. Blue Marine supported this, and we used our experience and evidence-base to promote the benefits of protection from bottom-trawling. We hope to use Sussex as a case study to support effective protection elsewhere. 

In addition, Blue Marine submitted an objection to the renewal of a licence which allows disposal of dredge spoil that would smother habitats inside Beachy Head West Marine Conservation Zone. 

Watch the Help Our Kelp campaign film narrated by Sir David Attenborough here:

Credits: Andy Jackson and Big Wave TV

Watch Sussex Kelp Recovery Project vision for nature recovery here: