Seaweed Industry or Seaweed Commons
05 Jul 2021
For the final webinar of Slow Fish 2021, all eyes were on seaweed, a new frontier in the ongoing battle between conservationists and the ever-hungry forces of globalized capitalism.
The many benefits of seaweed:
The first speaker was Amanda Swinimer of Dakini Tidal Wilds, a seaweed harvesting business she’s been running off the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, since 2003. She provided a concise introduction to the all reasons why seaweed should be of great interest to humanity. “The three main families of seaweed—red, green and brown—all have their own nutritional and sensory profile. But their importance goes far beyond their potential in the kitchen. They absorb about a third of the atmospheric carbon dioxide, and produce between 50 and 80% of our oxygen. What many people don’t know is that they also release iodine that contributes to cloud formation. They absorb heavy metals and toxins in the ocean, transforming them into non-reactive, less harmful forms of those toxins, thus helping to clean the ocean. Put simply, all life in the ocean depends on algae.”
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