By Krista Simmons

Fog drapes over the headlands of the Mendocino Coast, lifting just long enough to reveal jagged cliffs, wind-twisted cypress, and the powerful tides of the Pacific pounding against the shore. The ocean in this corner of Northern California is cold and uncompromising, but its strength is its beauty. And just beneath its surface, a silent struggle has taken hold. In a place where the seas are often rough, visibility is low, and few people ever dare to dive, entire underwater landscapes have shifted from towering kelp forest canopies to spiny purple urchin barrens.

Fed by nutrient-rich upwelling, Northern California’s kelp forest—referred to by some as the sequoias of the sea—once functioned as the backbone of the nearshore ecosystem, sheltering fish, feeding abalone and sea otters, and buffering the coastline from erosion and acidification. But over the past decade, more than 90% of bull kelp along the North Coast has disappeared, the result of warming waters, the loss of a key urchin predator called the sunflower sea star, and an explosion of purple sea urchins that graze relentlessly on kelp holdfasts. The consequences have rippled outward: Commercial fisheries have collapsed, abalone diving (both commercial and recreational) has shut down, dive shops and coastal businesses have struggled, and a defining piece of Mendocino’s underwater identity is slowly slipping away.

But in the true spirit of the West, entrepreneurs and environmental enthusiasts are creatively seeking solutions that work ecologically, culturally, and economically. Virj Kan, CEO of the Berkeley-based materials company Primitives Biodesign, is one such free thinker hoping to combat the issue through a beautiful biomarble called Urchinite.