Helgeland Regionråd is an organization working with the 7 counties Alstahaug, Dønna, Herøy, Leirfjord, Rødøy, Træna and vefsn.

http://www.hel.no/ipub/

It has just released a document detailing its concerns over taretråling – essentially it says that as the seaweed forests on their coasts have the highest density of life on the planet they are deeply concerned that there has been no documentation on the consequences of taretråling on their coast.

It goes further, they want a report on the consequences before further permission is allowed.  So in other words 7 counties are deeply concerned on the effects and want this industry to stop.

Click to read document.

so why is it only these 7 – Taretråling has been going on in other parts of Norway for many years  why aren’t the other counties doing the same?

Possibly the answer is not the damage done to the environment but pure economics.

Worse still, the other counties are prepared to sell our environment to an American-owned company without any regard at all for the consequences.  We have papers detailing loss of important food species – crabs – lobsters and many types of fish – other documents tell of some not commercially important species having their populations devastated.  We know it seriously affects many bird species – we again have papers on this
.

The worst aspect of this is that we rely on science – we trust it, even when our common sense tells us different – perhaps to be more exact we rely on scientists – the scientists concerned with this do not have enough research to show that taretråling is safe – they do not know the consequences of removing such vast masses of plant material or destroying such massive amounts of wildlife.

It is becoming apparent however that those consequences are beginning to show – it wont be long before our politicians will begin to want answers.

Just found a video on youtube from the Havsforskningsinstituttet – essentially it says that they are going to do research on taretråling so they can tell if it has any effects on the environment and ecology.

It was posted 3 months ago.

What is so fascinating about this is that all the research has been done – in 2002 or earlier – the research they are talking about was discussed at length at the last taretråling meeting 2 years ago in Trondheim.  They told us then  they have all the results they need. We filmed the meeting too

Well so do we – we’ve read the documents.

However this is a little uncoordinated –

Vi bor på Vestlandet.

Det er først og fremst en landsdel med mye natur, fjell og hav fullt av plante- og dyreliv. Med det som bakgrunn føles det helt utenfor enhver fornuft at man observerer taretrålerne som drar opp tang og tare uten noen form for regulering eller at det stilles spørsmål. Er det ingen som vet eller bryr seg om at det finnes et dyreliv der nede og at dette kan ha store konsekvenser for hele økosystemer, inkludert sjøfugler, fisk og andre organismer?

Jeg traff Johan for noen år siden, en lokal fiskerbonde, som delte min nysgjerrighet for dette. Vi observerte taretrålerne over tid, skaffet oss kart som viste hvor trålerne hadde konsesjon til å ta opp tare. Internet ble flittig brukt for å sjekke opp forskning, konsesjoner og alt som kunne finnes av stoff rundt taretråling. Svært lite eksisterer. Vi tillater altså at det tas opp mange tusen tonn med tare og at tareskogen raseres uten at det er noen som aner hvilke konsekvenser dette har. I tillegg er det ett forma som har monopol på denne virksomheten,FMC Biopolymers, en av 9 firmaer under paraplyen FMC Corp.

Spørsmålet er hvor lenge dette skal kunne foregå under radaren til myndighetene, havforskere, publikum og framtidige generasjoner. Vi har et valg – og det er å ta aktivt standpunkt for om dette er noe vi ønsker å undersøke. Og det er det!

Norway’s coast is being trawled for seaweed. Every part that can be trawled is being trawled.

We know that bottom trawling re distributes pollutants such as pcbs which are normally taken up by bottom sediment.

These pollutants are redistributed in the food chain and are ultimately ingested by us – these chemicals are cancer and other disorder causing.

We know that seaweed removes sediment from water and that the plants absorb dangerous chemicals – and many other pollutants including large amounts of nitrogen and co2.

The information on this is hidden behind simple statements such as “we only harvest .03% – there is so much that we cannot possibly make any difference and so forth. These statements cannot be verified – worse they are accepted by politicians and researchers without question.

However our seabirds are dying – many of the bird reserves that have been opened for trawling have empty colonies – we have 1 paper on the effects of seaweed trawling on cormorants (skarv) it says that after trawling the birds cannot survive because there is not enough food in the sea. There are no other papers we know of about. Possibly the main reason being negative publicity for the industry followed by restrictions on the type of research state organizations are allowed to undertake on grounds of economic influences.

Trawling in Norway is undertaken by one company FMC biopolymers – it is part of an American corporation FMC corp that has received world record fines for fraud – pollution, price fixing cartels and worse. It is responsible for the manufacture of Carborufan or furadan one of the most environmentally destructive insecticides ever produced – it has been used to decimate large predator populations such as lions, hyenas – birds of prey and other animals and yet the Norwegian state is happy to allow this one company a complete monopoly.

A year ago fmc proudly announced that every one of its seaweed trawlers would be fitted with tracking devices so that the controversial question of trawlers harvesting in areas closed to harvesting would be solved – to date 8 out of the 14 known trawlers have had this ais tracking fitted.  We are kept well informed by other organizations and individuals – so it is no surprise to learn that there has been alleged illegal harvesting in an area where the effluent from a factory processing radioactive material is known to flow – however we have been unable to verify this report.

There are 2 types of tracking. One is the standard marine tracking which all boats over a certain size have to have fitted – all the trawlers have this but it seems every one has turned it off so no public tracking is possible – the other system which cannot be turned off is only tracked by the fiskeriedirektoratet who are the regulating body.

We have caught one boat illegally fishing and in spite of attempts by the police to delay and subvert the process it was successful.

The second attempt by a colleague on the island of Runde is being bitterly fought by FMC biololymers who have denied the charge.

We have successfully managed to get the boats prosecuted under marine laws as the boats after harvesting are often grossly overloaded – this has led to a attack on one of our observers so it is quite clear it is having an effect.

However the skippers and seamen involved should be grateful to us as those regulations are there to protect their lives – overloaded ships are dangerous to other ships and those onboard.