Forest in the Sea
Off the coast of California, amid the towering fronds of the giant kelp - the largest and fastest growing seaweed in the world-sea-otters, urchins, fish, abalones and countless other colourful and bizarre marine creatures are engaged in a fight for existence. They struggle not only among themselves but with those who attempt to find a living there as fishermen.
When that forest of kelp began to disappear, urgent research began to reveal an intriguing natural history of a forest, essential for fisheries but also harvestable for algin, that essence of smoothness in our foods, toothpastes and paints, and which may be farmable in future for energy - methane gas sufficient for the whole of the United States.
Narrated and produced by BARRY PAINE
Photographed and directed by WOLFGANG BAYER
Film editor DAVID BARRETT Series editors
PETER JONES. ANTHONY ISAACS BBC Bristol