The pair were on the hunt for species inhabiting the highly biodiverse kelp forest that fringes the peninsular of Cape Town, South Africa for their latest project: 1001 Seaforest Species. The project seeks to document both the science and the stories of this ecosystem’s distinctive species, 1,001 of them to be exact.

Floating through the swaying golden-brown ribbons of kelp with the sounds of countless creatures crackling in their ears, they came face to face with an octopus they had been tracking for a few months. Usually shy and hidden in her shelter in the rubble of the sea floor, today she was bold and curious. Pooling out of her den in liquid movements she rapidly reached out an arm, suctioned Foster’s camera out of his grip and swam off with it in an act of interspecies larceny. The cephalopod thief engulfed the lens with her suckers, exploring the device. Then she slowly turned the camera on the two humans crouched on the seafloor watching her, filming the interaction from her perspective. The observed had become the observer.

Reviewing the footage later after carefully retrieving the camera from her sticky grasp, Foster and Landschoff felt the boundary between human and nature dissolve. They were no longer visitors to this vibrant marine realm of enigmatic seaforest creatures: they were part of it, a species among 1,001 others.

It’s not the first time an octopus has been a source of inspiration for the pair. Landschoff and Foster are team members of the Sea Change Project, the organisation behind My Octopus Teacher, an Academy Award-winning documentary about Foster’s bond with another local cephalopod that focused global attention on South African kelp forests. The story motivated millions to contemplate their own relationship with nature.

This was the result of the story of a human’s connection with one animal. But what of the rest of the kelp forest in which the life of the octopus was set? The striped pyjama sharks that stalked her with their keen noses; the wiry black brittle stars that attempted to sneak a bite of her meals; the kelp fronds themselves – a giant algal forest swaying above her den: each as much a unique and essential element of this ecosystem as the last. With funding from the Save Our Seas Foundation, Landschoff created 1001 Seaforest Species to spotlight the entire seaforest ecosystem in all its biodiverse glory. On the core team: Landschoff, Foster and Emeritus Professor of marine biology, Charles Griffiths.

Interweaving the rigors of taxonomic study with the art of storytelling, 1001 seeks to generate a unique repository of marine knowledge that could seed both scientific publications and natural history films alike. The bedrock of foundational biodiversity knowledge built will resolve unanswered taxonomic questions of how organisms fit together in the great seaforest puzzle, while the stories of those species will bring that biodiversity to life in the minds of others. Although 1,001 species is merely a drop in the ocean of life present in South Africa’s waters, the number is a reference to One Thousand and One Nights, the Middle Eastern fables in which a newlywed princess softens the heart of a murderous king through her captivating storytelling. In the same way that the princess’ stories saved her own life, 1001 hopes to entrance us with stories of the kelp forest, deepening our appreciation for and ultimately convincing us to protect this precious ecosystem and its inhabitants. “We scientists talk constantly about the need to protect biodiversity but we need better communication tools to offer people a good understanding of why this is so important,” says Landschoff. “I think more people are realising that science and storytelling together are the key to conservation,” Foster reflects. “If you can get those two things working well, then it really does shift things. Storytelling is a powerful medium for changing people’s perceptions, but if you don’t know the science, you can’t tell the story properly.”