Documenting the Great African Seaforest
Show notes
This World of Sharks podcast episode is the last in our South Africa mini-series. We started with Pippa Ehrlich, film-maker and director of the award-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher. And we’re ending with another award-winning filmmaker and marine conservationist, Craig Foster, who you might recognise as the main protagonist of that film. But in this episode, we’re not talking about the documentary but the very special place in which it was filmed – a place that Craig has spent his life exploring, documenting and sharing with others. As you’ll hear, it’s a habitat that means so much to Craig and one that he deeply understands and connects with.
The Great African Seaforest is the only forest of giant bamboo kelp on our planet, stretching 1000km from the shores of Cape Town in South Africa to the coastlines of Namibia. It’s famous for the towering thickets of kelp that sway with the motion of the sea and harbours an astonishing diversity of life, from tiny invertebrates to great shoals of fish and many species of shark and ray (which we’ll talk about!). Kelp is important not only for these creatures but also for us, as it stores carbon from the atmosphere, protects us from storms, and, as Craig will explain, is a very important part of our heritage. In this episode, we’ll be talking all about the seaforest and why Craig has dedicated his life to sharing it and encouraging its protection. We discuss The Sea Change Project, of which he is co-founder and ‘1001 Seaforest Species’, a project funded by the Save Our Seas Foundation and led by Craig and another member of the Sea Change team, marine biologist Dr Jannes Landschoff.
For the last 12 years, Craig has committed himself to daily cold-water dives. For him, every experience is memorable for different reasons – but some still stand out. We start the podcast with a tale about some particularly memorable dives 7-10km off South Africa’s east coast [6.34]. For days, Craig could dive with the same group of female tiger sharks, which he said profoundly impacted him and his perception of the species. At first, the sharks were ‘intimidating’ due to their huge size and fearsome reputation, but he soon understood that although they were interested in the divers, they were not out to harm them. In fact, some individuals began to seek out physical contact with them, rubbing their bodies against Craig and his fellow divers. The experience was so special that for days afterwards, Craig would dream he was still in the water, surrounded by the tigers and their ‘size and grace’.
However, Craig’s relationship with the ocean began long before those dives [12.27]. Growing up in a wooden bungalow below the high water mark, he describes living his early life as part of the intertidal zone, where at certain points in the tidal cycle, the ocean would come into contact with the very walls of his house. Having started diving at three, Craig says he feels very strange if he hasn’t been in the water at least once a day – for him, it’s become something of a ritual or even a necessity. Now living on the shores of Cape Town, South Africa, the ocean remains on Craig’s doorstep. Here, water temperatures can be as low as 10-12 degrees Celsius, but Craig prefers diving without a wetsuit [14.52]. There are many health benefits to cold water immersion – both mental and physical. It can increase levels of dopamine and noradrenaline in the body, improving your mood and alertness. Craig also believes that learning to adapt to cold water is a powerful tool for life. Staying calm and breathing through those initial dramatic feelings could equip you for stressful periods in other parts of your life, teaching you to take things slowly and listen to your body and mind [18.05].
The cold also helps Craig to feel more in tune with the underwater world around him, feeling every minute change in temperature, every shift in the tide, and the kelp brushing against his skin. And once he began applying himself to cold water immersion every day, about 12 years ago, he began to notice small trails on the rocks, in the sand and even on the kelp – telltale signs of animal life [20.57]. Learning to read and analyse these signs is part of an ancient practice known as ‘tracking’. It is a way of identifying and finding animals that dates back centuries and is still used by hunters today. Craig himself learned to track by observing the master trackers of the Kalahari in his 20s and 30s. Later, he began to wonder if he could use tracking better to understand the comings and goings of the Seaforest, but at first, he doubted if this was possible. After all, the sea constantly shifts and moves – surely any tracks would soon be washed away? But slowly, he discovered that there were trails and signs everywhere if you just paid attention.
To illustrate his point, Craig has some real-life examples; trinkets from the seafloor [23.48]. A tiny pin-hole in the side of a helmet shell is the hallmark of an octopus, whereas the different thicknesses of two other helmet shells reveal that one grew up higher in the intertidal zone, where it needed to develop a thicker shell to cope with the crashing waves. And a fossilised shell can tell us what the same coastline used to look like five million years ago. Like forensics or archaeology, underwater tracking involves piecing together a number of clues to figure out what happened without you being there to see it. Who was here? What happened? And who interacted with who? Craig calls it being a ‘detective in the wild’!
So, what makes the Great African Seaforest so special? Firstly, it has a vast cultural heritage [31.10]. Scientists and archaeologists are finding evidence of the first art and science representing the kelp forest in South Africa, dating back almost 100,000 years. This suggests that our ancestors lived in close proximity to the ocean and that this very kelp forest was most likely the first place they dived and swum and recorded what they were seeing.
Second, it is one of the healthiest kelp forests alive today and, as a result, is a hugely biodiverse habitat [34.00]. The forest supports many species, including an astonishing array of invertebrates – crabs, lobsters, nudibranchs, bivalves, urchins, starfish, cuttlefish and of course, octopus. Large shoals of reef fish float about the forest canopy. And a huge diversity of sharks and rays rely on the seaforest for food and shelter [38.57]. Puffadder and dark shy sharks, a small species of shark that curl up into a doughnut when threatened, weave their way between the kelp stipes. Pyjama sharks can be found napping in small caves piled on top of one another. Gully sharks can be found in abundance, aggregating in groups of up to 70 at a time to mate. Larger species, like the bronze whaler, sevengill cowshark, smoothhounds and even great whites, can be seen gliding past. There is even the short-tailed stingray, thought to be the largest species of stingray in the world, reaching lengths of over 4m.
The incredible biodiversity of the seaforest, and its importance to not only our planet’s health but also our own species, was the driving force behind the Sea Change Project [42.40]. The project started when more people began joining Craig on his cold-water adventures. A group of passionate people soon formed a mixture of researchers, storytellers and other creatives that naturally morphed into the non-profit that it is today. Their initial mission was to give the kelp forest a name, with the belief that more people would become interested and want to protect it – and so the ‘Great African Seaforest’ was born [44.21]. They also wanted to use a combination of science and storytelling to raise awareness of the seaforest through films, exhibitions, books and campaigns, My Octopus Teacher being one of these efforts. The documentary’s enormous success significantly raised the seaforest’s profile, and so now Craig and the team at Sea Change are working to build on that momentum.
Part of this is 1001 Seaforest Species, a project funded by the Save Our Seas Foundation [49.60]. Craig and marine biologist Jannes Landschoff aim to document 1001 species and share their profiles via science-informed storytelling. The idea was inspired by the famous tale, 1001 Arabian Nights. It is the story of a King who was betrayed by his wife and was so filled with rage that he beheaded her. This began a terrible cycle of marrying a woman and beheading her on the same day until one woman saved her own life by telling him a story on the day they married. She deliberately left it on a cliffhanger, and the King – absolutely hooked by the story – kept her alive to hear the next instalment. This continued for many days and nights until the King, so transformed by her storytelling, decided to break the cycle. Craig and Jannes hope that if they can capture people with their stories of the creatures in the seaforest – informed by scientific research – they can break the cycle of the destruction of nature and replace it with a narrative of care and protection.
Craig has a deep connection with the ocean, forged from immersing himself in it daily. But how can someone who doesn’t have this privilege stay connected to the ocean and be inspired to protect her? As Craig says, it doesn’t matter where you are in the world; you rely on the ocean [56.20]. Water flows everywhere on our planet – from our taps, rivers, and plants and trees – which all began with the ocean. Even our very breath depends on it. Every 3rd or 4th breath you take comes from phytoplankton, far out to sea. Craig encourages us in times of stress or disconnects to close our eyes and think about the fact that our breath takes us back to the ocean, no matter how far we are away from her.
He hopes that the work of the Sea Change Project, and 1001 Seaforest Species, will help to reconnect people to blue spaces and see nature as something on which we all depend. To close the podcast, he says, “Life can feel scary at times, but we have these multiple levels of biodiversity, life, nature and other extraordinary things supporting us.” [1.00.24].
ABOUT OUR GUEST
CRAIG FOSTER
Craig Foster co-founded the Sea Change Trust and is one of the world’s leading natural history filmmakers. He has dedicated himself to learning the secrets of the Great African Seaforest – the inshore kelp habitat at the South West tip of Africa, his underwater home. He has written a book with Ross on their transformative experiences exploring the little-known coastline and shallow seas of the Cape Peninsula. His film My Octopus Teacher (Oscar-winning film and winner of a Golden Panda, Grand Teton and PGA) follows the story of his year with a wild octopus while honouring his pact to dive 365 times a year. Through this regular intensive immersion, he has uncovered a plethora of new animal behaviours and species. One of the species is a shrimp which has been named after him: Heteromysis fosteri. He founded the Sea Change Project to share his love of nature with others.
