Stewardship of the Salish Sea through the Beauty of Film and the Actions of Communities

I think about the somewhat trite phrase that seeing is believing.

I think the films really get impactful when that triggers people to care and then to want to do something.

As you're making a film or evaluating something you have filmed, what are you looking for in ways of how to make an impact? Do you have particular thoughts about what makes a film impactful?

I think the foundation of it all is really the amazing underwater world we have around here.

And whatever subject you touch, it just spawns these amazing stories because there's just so many amazing things around us.

And then it's just speaking the truth, you know, and speaking the truth to how they're doing, what their prospects are, what their place is in the food web, how they interact with so many other places in the food web.

You know, there's this beautiful piece we have out there.

It's called Kelp Lifeways.

Kelp Lifeways?

Kelp Lifeways.

And you can find that it's open source.

So you can find that on the internet.

If you just Google Kelp Lifeways, you'll end up on the video.

And that's Puget Sound Restoration Fund and NOAA who really... invited me to portray their kelp survey a few years ago and it led to this story of kelp lifeways and it really depicts of how important what a critically important habitat that is in our region and where kelp carbon ends up, including ourselves, and how much it radiates out of these small habitats, relatively small habitats.

They can get quite large on the outer coast, or if you go off Smith and Minor Island, for example, there's a huge kelp bed right there.

But mostly, you know, they kind of just straddle our coastline in this felt canopy layer that we see, especially during the summer.

And again, there's so many people studying this in this region and caring for the habitat, realizing how important it is, whether they're rockfish scientists that are realizing, hey, our rockfish need this to survive.

And, you know, it goes right into this carbon equation where.

all these different places where kelp carbon ends up at the end of the day.

And you wouldn't even have thought of it if there wasn't all this great science around us.

So it really all comes together.

And I think kelp lifeways really shows how important some of these places really are.