Month: May 2013

Chile in Trouble

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2296882/Chiles-crimson-tide-prawns–Mystery-millions-dead-shrimp-washed-ashore-turning-beach-bright-red.html

Dead shrimps washed ashore – presumably poisoned

Chile sead crustacea

Chile, peru dead dolphins

This is all very unscientific – I’ve been repeatedly told not to use anything unscientific or that cannot be verified – for instance there is no scientific proof that seaweed trawling damages the environment – or so the seaweed trawling industry tells us repeatedly and those who want to believe do so.  However I say the opposite should be happening – even the industry itself says there is not enough research on the long term effects of commercial seaweed harvesting on the ecology – there are major changes in the ecology of the sea – these events are not natural/normal – these coasts are being constantly harvested for seaweed – does not seaweed clean the sea, the same as plants on land???

Here is a little piece from an article from FAO the food and agriculture organization in the 80s about harvesting in Chile.

- too many animals in the seaweed

Essentially it says that some forms of seaweed have been decreasing in value due to fish eggs.  Possible solutions are to change the ph of the water so they are no longer attractive to the fish – other methods such as removing the fish altogether are not commercially viable.

The paper is here http://www.fao.org/3/P8253E/P8253E01.htm#ch1.2

Interesting Relationships

Probably the biggest hazard facing the marine ecosystem in Norway, if not the world is seaweed harvesting – as we know seaweed removes many dangerous chemicals, including carbon dioxide and it is an oxygenator – it is also the home for an amazing number of creatures including many of our most important food animals – from the map in the previous post it is clear that the entire Norwegian coast is being harvested.  The information on this is in the hands of qualified marine biologists.

I asked Henning Steen who gave the first lecture at the Runde taretråling conference,  if the predation of sea urchins had anything to do with taretråling – he replied nothing at all – I then asked him if taretråling had ever been undertaken in the areas where sea urchins were causing problems – he replied that taretråling had no connection with sea urchin predation – This was in the conference hall with a full audience.

Henning steen Cråkeboller lecture adj
From the video on the Henning Steen lecture at Runde.

Another lecture was on the problems caused to seabirds by taretråling – i was able to read the paper later it was by Svein -Håkon Lorentsen among other authors

Essentially part of the document said that taretråling does have an impact on Sea urchin numbers – and here is the proof to show it.

Lorentzen cråkeboller predation

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320710002363

The Fiskeriedirektoratet has been receiving papers from us on seaweed harvesting worldwide – and other related information – when we asked them why we were of importance to them we were told that they had no other source – we then said surely you have a research department – we were told that it was run by Henning Steen –

So we did a little research into Mr. Steen – and this is what we found.

Henning Steen

It appears he is responsible for the development of Taretråling on the Norwegian coast – and monitoring and establishing new areas to harvest.

Strangely enough we also found out that many of the directors of Fmc biopolymer come from the fiskeriedirektoratet and the havsforskning institut – so let’s be clear on this – there are very close ties between the industry and the regulatory bodies – very.

Strict Control of Seaweed Harvesting along the Norwegian Coast

This is the area where seaweed harvesting on the Norwegian coast is allowed.

This is from the Fiskeriedirektoratets website   https://kart.fiskeridir.no/

taretråling feldt fiskeridir

South of this area there is limited growth – if this is due to previous overharvesting we do not know.

North of the area we have information that there is little seaweed due to the predation of sea urchins.  We have information that seaweed harvesting can lead to this.

There is supposedly strict regulation of this – we found that there are forbidden areas – we felt that as there was no monitoring of the activity of the trawlers we should do some – the resulting prosecution took over 18 months to go through the courts despite attempts to block the process and procrastination by the police – we understand that one of the policemen concerned is under investigation by another force.  We have video evidence.