This advertisement appeared in the Norwegian Newspaper vårtland a few days ago.
My colleagues picked it up at once – ALGINOR and yes it is about the exploitation of our Norwegian seaweed beds of Laminaria hyperborea or stor tare.
The advertisement mentions a share sale – the date of the paper is the ff21 of august 2019 – the date of the closure of the sale is the 23rd so the buyer has 2 days in which to make up his or her mind – that is just a little unusual, so we did a little internet research – first page:
The first thing is that the Norwegian environmental group Bellona is involved
We contacted them with reference to seaweed trawling many years ago – they replied that they could not comment as they had been working with fmc (the seaweed trawling company) on cultivation projects.
This is the wiki article on the leader of Bellona Fredrik Hauge.
In an nrk article he mentioned that it was much better working from the inside than fom the outside as he has been in the past.
it says that Bellona has adopted a very pragmatic method of working in the environmental protectionism world – they work with rather than against the companies concerned – fact is this may probably be the best way of solving many of these serious environmental issues but by supporting the proposed share sale it is not working for the environment but trying to sponsor its destruction.
This is Bellonas part of the Alginor website
Yes it says that Bellona will be working with the seaweed harvesting companies to try to limit the ecological damage it does
Hey, wait a bit “with a common goal of a sustainable kelp harvesting industry”
That implies that it is not so now because if it was they would not need to “assist”
We know that Bellona employs many budding marine biologists so they would know what effect it is having on our marine ecosystems and yet it is ignoring this because every independent research paper we have read clearly shows the effect on the environment this industry is having.
Further we are not alone having been joined by large groups in Scotland and Ireland who are in agreement over this issue.
This has also been under the spotlight of such personages as Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough
Another interesting little addition to the front page of the Algea website is the EU sponsorship
They have been given 1.9 million euros so far (for the destruction of our marine habitats???)
Following the various leads it is based on a organization called Horizon 2020 – they say they have 7 billion euros to give out to innovative and important projects
Our current information concerning the harvesting of Laminaria hyperborea on the Norwegian coast is that the industry is finding it difficult (in spite of frequent statements on the good health of Norwegian seaweed) to find enough raw material – further we know that FMC/DUPONT imports seaweed from Chile and other south American lands (Peru was omitted from that list after we pointed out that it banned all forms of seaweed harvesting in 2008 – but note only omitted ) their seaweed beds must also be having problems.
Many councils here after more reports, decided to change the harvesting frequencies from 4 years to 8 years – that would seriously affect the industry too, so investment would seem a little strange at this moment.
We are trying to contact the EU concerning this and will post as soon as we have a reply.
