Why Kelp Our Model Initiatives 🌿 Kelp Helpers 🗿 KiwiKrete ☕ Calcara 🤿 Removals 🐧 Pingo 🍄 Seafoo™ 🕹️ Reef Rescue 🎯 SeaSniper ⛵ Sailing Into Sunset 🌿 Founder's Story 🏄 Surf Shacks Help your way!
🌿 Aotearoa New Zealand · Est. 2024

Restoring the
Ocean's Forests

Kelp forests are collapsing in 43 countries — threatened by a range of complex challenges. We're leveraging the best scalable innovations through collaboration.

Alex as a child snorkelling over a reef X-ray of Alex's thumb after a kina spike injury
Founder's Story

From a kina spike to a kelp forest mission

I grew up diving in kelp forests so thick the fronds felt like sea snakes grabbing your leg. In 2021, I dove into a barren reef at Little Barrier Island to find it stripped bare — and a kina spike to the thumb put me in hospital two weeks later. That's where Kelp Helpers began.

Read the full story →
The Problem

Kelp forests are collapsing worldwide

Kelp forests have declined across 43 countries, driven by a range of complex, often overlapping challenges:

Kelp Helpers is leveraging the best scalable innovations through collaboration — removing barriers, returning kelp, and building circular economies that make restoration self-funding.

Learn more about the crisis →
Our Initiatives

Ten initiatives. One mission.

Each initiative is a distinct entity designed to work together — roots that generate revenue, leaves that engage the world, and a charitable trust at the core holding it all together.

Charitable Trust · Core
🌿 Kelp Helpers
The connective trust. Holds the brand and story, raises awareness, advocates for restoration, and coordinates across all entities.
Progress to MVP20%
Material · Roots
🗿 KiwiKrete
Transforms kina waste shells and spines into decorative and structural concrete products — ocean-positive concrete.
Progress to MVP80%
Material · Roots
☕ Calcara
Transforms shell and seaweed byproducts into high-value ceramic and marble materials — a sustainable replacement for engineered stone.
Progress to MVP5%
Logistics · Roots
🤿 Removals
A regenerative logistics service removing invasive kina and fan worm from barrens, redistributing materials into the circular economy.
Progress to MVP5%
Technology · Leaves
🐧 Pingo
A modular multi-robot mapping platform using autonomous drones, AR, and biodiversity tools to make ocean degradation visible — and fundable.
Progress to MVP5%
Food · Leaves
🍄 Seafoo™
A next-gen seafood alternative made from NZ-grown mycelium and marine algae oils — built to heal the ocean with every bite.
Progress to MVP10%
Gaming · Leaves
🕹️ Reef Rescue
An educational game and real-world restoration initiative empowering communities to design, fund, and deploy artificial reefs.
Progress to MVP10%
Gaming · Leaves
🎯 SeaSniper
A gamified spearfishing learning journey that redirects apex predator hunters toward restoration-positive targets.
Progress to MVP5%
Film & Story · Leaves
⛵ Sailing Into Sunset
A father-son voyage around New Zealand in search of the crayfish once abundant in the Hauraki Gulf, now functionally extinct — the origin story behind Kelp Helpers.
Progress to MVP60%
Hospitality · Leaves
🏄 Surf Shacks
Ocean-front hospitality hubs for surfers, divers, and ocean lovers — where every stay funds kina removal and kelp restoration.
Progress to MVP80%

Ready to help the kelp?

There are many ways to support Aotearoa's kelp restoration — buy a product, fund a dive, or simply spread the word. Every contribution helps push back the kina barrens and bring the forests back.