David Helvarg, "Forest of the Sea: The Remarkable Life and Imperiled Future of Kelp" (Princeton UP, 2026)

In

a matter of decades, a spectacular cold-water paradise thirty million

years in the making is succumbing to warming oceans. Kelp forests are

largely out of sight, hidden under the ocean’s surface, yet they are one

of Earth’s most wondrous and underappreciated marine habitats. It’s

an ethereal light-infused realm of sharks, otters, eels, sea stars,

crabs, rockfish, and myriad other species vital to a functioning ocean

and the countless coastal communities that make their living from the

sea. Unlike coral reefs, whose similar plight plays out in tropical

waters highly visible to vacationing tourists, kelp forests thrive along

cold-water coastlines far from tourist centers. What will it take to

stop the decline before these underwater playgrounds bursting with