Editor’s Note: Summer 2024
National Wildlife magazine editor Jennifer Wehunt presents a collection of stories from the summer 2024 issue exploring themes of climate anxiety and hope
- By Jennifer Wehunt
- NWF News
- Jun 27, 2024
Off the coast of Monterey, California, a Brandt’s cormorant (above) dives for fish in a thriving kelp forest.
THERE ARE A COUPLE OF SENTIMENTS in “Can the Kelp Forest Keep Up?”—an eye-opening look at coastal California kelp forests by our sagacious senior editor, Laura Tangley—that have stuck with me throughout our work on this issue.
Ecosystems in their own right, kelp forests support so many animals, humans among them. And yet they’ve been relentlessly pummeled by decisions we’ve made. You can hear a note of helplessness in this quote from Mark Carr, a marine ecologist with the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has studied kelp for decades: “Do you go out and restore a kelp forest that will last only until the next marine heat wave takes it out? At what point is this just beating your head against a wall?”
I can relate to that feeling, and not just about kelp. There’s so much going against wildlife, and against us, including ourselves. It can be a lot.
But then I read this quote from Aaron Eger, a marine biologist with the University of New South Wales in Australia and the founder of the Kelp Forest Alliance. “I can’t imagine a future without kelp forests,” he says. “I couldn’t do what I do otherwise.”
We’ve done our best in reporting this issue’s stories, from practitioners of traditional Hawaiian culture keeping endangered species alive to lessons learned from prehistoric beasts to the possibilities of new life in the great underwater unknown. That’s a future I want to envision.
Jennifer Wehunt is the editorial director of National Wildlife magazine. Share your thoughts on the magazine by emailing nwfeditor@nwf.org
