Kelpfest "telling the story of seaweed"

Mendocino County Public Broadcasting | By Sarah Reith

Scientists on Big River beach were enticing visitors to learn about kelp over the holiday weekend, as the first-ever North Coast Kelpfest got underway. It’s a three-week extravaganza about kelp, urchin and their place in the ecosystem, with art and film, food, walkabouts and science talks every weekend until June 16. It’s the brainchild of Marianna Leuschel, one of the key organizers of a campaign called Above Below, which seeks to bring the knowledge of the deep onto the surface. Though she’s been living on the coast for 18 years, she said, she didn’t learn about the loss of kelp until 2020. “I was just shocked, that not only did I not know, but it seemed that so many people I spoke with really weren’t informed” either, she said.