In the case of the effects of commercial seaweed harvesting it seems most experts are very careful to make statements that do the least harm. They don’t want to cause ripples –
http://www.nrk.no/nordland/bekymret-for-surere-hav-1.11980978
click on image to enlarge
so this article on the effects green house gasses are having on our seas is most alarming in that there is no mention of seaweed that I can see and yet Norway is busy destroying its seaweed beds as fast as it possibly can.
Destroying – that is the correct word. Where is the precedent for this.
Brazil – Chile – Peru – what happened there???
Why has Chile, one of the worlds poorest countries banned seaweed harvesting in 2008?
Interestingly enough Japan as long ago as the early 1900s started cultivating seaweed because it found harvesting continuously, destroyed the seaweed beds.
click to read
We asked Bellona (one of Norway’s major environmental groups) what they felt about seaweed trawling, but they were unable to comment because they were busy on a project working with fmc biolopymers – the company that taretråwls the coast.
This is currently the areas regulated by the fiskeriedirektoratet but Harvesting is occurring in a much larger area with so called “test “Trawling. In fact currently the entire coast where seaweed grows in sufficient amounts to support the industry.
Map from the fiskeriedirektoratets website of trawling areas .
Even though FMC biopolymers say they only take 0.03% of the available amount it seems strange that they require such a large area to do so – it also seems strange that as officially each area looses between 15 and 80% of its seaweed from harvesting this figure is still adhered to.
Are we really doomed to repeat history because our researchers are not looking I the right places (to please our politicians?) If I can find the information – so can they)
As a result the organizations responsible for regulating the harvest do not have enough information to call a halt either.
(how do I know this??? I’ve asked them.)
– when the esteemed scientists telling us our seas are becoming too acid through carbon dioxide absorption finally add seaweed harvesting to the list of causes it may be far too late.
