Fighting on multiple fronts: the Puget Sound Restoration Fund’s multi-faceted approach to combatting ocean acidification

• Main Author: Peabody, Betsy
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Western CEDAR 2014
• Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://cedar.wwu.edu/ssec/2014ssec/Day2/173; https://cedar.wwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1299&context=ssec

The Puget Sound Restoration Fund (PSRF) is dedicated “to restoring marine habitat, water quality, and native species in Puget Sound through tangible, on-the-ground projects.” They take a non-activist, project-oriented, broadly inclusive approach to their work, engaging with industry, tribes, government agencies, private landowners and community groups. In recent years, as ocean acidification (OA) has begun to impinge on all aspects of their restoration work (habitat, water quality and native species), the PSRF and its Executive Director Betsy Peabody have become increasingly focused on OA mitigation, adaptation and education. Several ongoing PSRF projects, such as shellfish restoration and farming, nutrient mitigation, and kelp recovery, have taken on additional importance as potential tools for combating OA. Other efforts are more recent. These include Betsy’s work with the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Ocean Acidification in 2012; PSRF’s support for the development and implementation of OA-based curricula for K-12 science classrooms; and submission of a highly-ranked proposal to the 2013 Paul Allen Family Foundation’s ‘Ocean Challenge’, a contest soliciting ideas for OA mitigation and adaptation. The PSRF and their partners were ultimately invited by the Foundation to submit a full proposal to pilot their mitigation strategy in Puget Sound (awards will be announced in early 2014). If funded, the team will test the efficacy of growing and harvesting marine macro algae as a means of removing excess dissolved carbon dioxide and nutrients from three Puget Sound embayments to create OA ‘refugia’. Betsy’s presentation will highlight these and other examples of productive partnerships, as well as opportunities for new collaborations to address OA in the Salish Sea.