Can Sea Otters Save the World?

 

I think the answer should be obvious... ;-)

But according to Chris Wilmers at the University of California at Santa Cruz, otters perform an exceptionally valuable service by maintaining a healthy kelp ecosystem: The otters eat kelp-devouring sea urchins, allowing kelp forests to act as carbon sinks, locking up 0.18 kg of carbon for every square meter of coast otters inhabit. Wilmers and his colleagues estimate that were sea otters restored to healthy populations in North America, "they could collectively lock up a mammoth 1010 kg of carbon – currently worth more than $700 million on the European carbon-trading market."

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/sierradaily/2011/04/can-sea-otters-save-the-planet.html