Helping Seaweed Farming Achieve Its Full Potential

We should\r\nthink of seaweed as anything but the unwelcome marine “plants” their name would\r\nsuggest. These oft-overlooked species within the aquaculture world have\r\ntremendously diverse commercial applications; the potential to improve human\r\nwellbeing for coastal communities in emerging economies; and can be farmed in\r\nharmony with marine ecosystems.

European and\r\nNorth American readers may be most familiar with the recent excitement around\r\nnew developments in kelp aquaculture in places like Norway and Maine, where\r\npilot and small-scale commercial projects are underway. But seaweeds\r\nalready represent a booming sector, with the global industry worth more than\r\nUS$6 billion per year and red seaweed production in Indonesia alone growing\r\nalmost 900 per cent over the last decade. At The Nature Conservancy (TNC), we think\r\nit’s time this vibrant subsector received a little more attention. The bulk of\r\nthe world’s tropical red seaweed production occurs in South-East Asia. The\r\nlargest producer of red seaweeds is Indonesia, where TNC has been developing\r\non-the-ground seaweed-aquaculture improvement projects for the last three\r\nyears.

Processed\r\nred seaweed products enter a global marketplace where they are primarily used\r\nas thickening agents (in the form of carrageenan or agar), which are common in\r\nindustrial food products and cosmetics. Interest is also emerging in novel\r\napplications of tropical seaweeds to address other key societal needs – such as\r\nsustainable animal feeds, biofuels,\r\npharmaceuticals, and nutraceuticals.

In these\r\ncountries, tropical seaweed aquaculture is an important industry globally,\r\nparticularly for women, rural populations and indigenous people. Over 1 million\r\ncoastal Indonesians engage in seaweed aquaculture, many of whom live in remote\r\ncommunities with few other economic opportunities. World Bank\r\nanalysis shows that expanding seaweed farming in these and other\r\ntropical areas has potential to further boost local incomes, food security and\r\nenvironmental health.

However,\r\nthis is not an industry without challenges. Disease reduces yields; lack of\r\nconsistent product quality constrains price; and poor environmental practices\r\nhave resulted in habitat degradation and marine plastic pollution. These\r\nchallenges must be addressed to help the industry achieve the true “triple\r\nbottom line” of delivering economic, environmental and social progress.

For this\r\nreason, TNC is releasing a new three-part guide: Coastal\r\nConservation and Sustainable Livelihoods through Seaweed Aquaculture in\r\nIndonesia.

Over the\r\nlast three years, TNC has been working in communities in Indonesia’s\r\nsouthernmost province, Nusa Tenggara Timur, to help improve and advocate for\r\nseaweed aquaculture as an alternative livelihood to combat overfishing. This\r\ncollaboration is focusing on areas including improving seaweed production and drying\r\npractices for greater economic yield; providing training for value-added\r\nproducts and financial management; and reducing habitat impacts to climate and\r\nwildlife-critical coral reef, mangrove and seagrass ecosystems. Through our\r\naquaculture work, we determined the need for a guide not only for seaweed\r\nfarmers, but seaweed purchasers and ourselves as a global environmental\r\nnonprofit – to be clear and transparent about the goals we’re working to\r\nadvance, and to provide a replicable structure that can be adapted for\r\ndifferent seaweed farming communities across the world.

Our guide\r\nprovides information and recommendations for three primary audiences:

1. Seaweed\r\nbuyers, with suggested actions to increase the sustainability of their supply\r\nchains.

2. Conservation\r\norganisations, with information on how they can effectively work with seaweed\r\nfarming communities to maximise potential for environmental and social gains.

3. Seaweed\r\nfarmers, with information on how they can improve their production practices\r\nfor maximum environmental and financial benefits.

Including a\r\nguide for buyers as a key component is a strategy that is rooted in the belief\r\nthat, particularly for countries that often have less stringent regulatory\r\ncontrols in place for environmental protection, working with businesses can\r\nrepresent a successful path towards conservation gains while also supporting\r\ncoastal livelihoods. And that increasing the sustainability of supply chains is\r\nbeneficial to buyers not only for obtaining sustainable eco-labels for market differentiation,\r\nbut because poor practices – whether environmental, social, or economic – can\r\nundermine long-term business viability.

 The seaweed supply chain in Indonesia

For seaweed\r\nbuyers, the new guide provides an overview of both the global and Indonesian\r\ncarrageenan markets, including: export and price trends; sustainable and\r\norganic seaweed certification programmes; how companies can develop and\r\nimplement internal purchasing and traceability standards; different commodity\r\ntraceability models; the traceability challenges and current supply chain of\r\nseaweed in Indonesia; and recommendations for how to increase traceability of\r\nseaweed from farmer to purchaser. For\r\nconservation organisations working in seaweed aquaculture, we outline why TNC\r\nsees this industry as a gateway to wider conservation gains and social\r\nempowerment. We discuss opportunities and challenges of seaweed farming and how\r\nour Indonesian team is using a community development strategy called SIGAP (“Aksi Inspiratif\r\nWarga untuk Perubahan” or “Communities Inspiring Action for Change”) to\r\novercome these challenges and invest in the opportunities.

The third\r\npart of the guide is an illustrated “how-to” for seaweed farmers, which will be\r\nused in concert with the on-the-ground training sessions that TNC and other\r\npartners have been providing to local communities. As our work continues, we\r\nhope that the new guide will evolve, serving as a living document to\r\nincorporate emerging information and approaches to increasing the\r\nsustainability of tropical seaweed along the supply chain that also have\r\npotential to be replicated globally. We are also developing a guide for seaweed\r\nfarming in Belize that builds upon the structure established for our initial\r\nIndonesia guide. What remains constant throughout this thinking, though, is\r\nthat reliable sources of seaweed farmed in responsible ways are not only of\r\neconomic and ecological benefits to coastal communities and environments, but\r\nalso to seaweed buyers across multiple global sectors, from packaged foods to\r\ncosmetics, who are interested in securing more sustainable and traceable\r\nsources of seaweed for their own industries.

Source : The Fish Site