F R O M T H E C R O W E ’ S N E S T
Scrap the 19th Century Model
The move to mow the Maine coastline’s intertidal zone rockweed forests is evolving under the radar. These forests are, in one way or another, habitat for many of the commercial species in the Gulf of Maine and about 130 others. A lawsuit, which will not block the progress of a DMR sector plan effectively privatizing the rockweed resource, is focused on defining rockweed ownership.
Nature has already defined rockweed as a fixed plant that creates an essential underwater forest within which lobster to cod to shellfish find food, refuge, and shade. It’s a world very few of us see. Would the upland animals survive in their forest if the trees of that canopied habitat were cut to 50%-75% of their natural height?
Cutting rockweed habitat may be out of sight/out of mind for many, but not for the coastal communities that rely on the commercially harvested sea animals supported by it. The increasing value and expanding worldwide demand for rockweed, 95% for fertilizer exports, has no end in sight. One of several harvesters and the defendant in the suit, Acadian Seaplants, Ltd., Canada, ship rockweed products to 70 countries for 80 crops. How long will the rockweed habitat on the Maine coast last? Canadian officials report Nova Scotia rockweed has long been overharvested. Cobscook Bay is under sectors. Corporate harvesters operate there without third-party verification of practices. Why is Maine adopting the Canadian corporate exploitation of resources model?
Many downeast Maine fishermen have said they don’t want the Arcadian harvests. There are too many good reasons why Maine fishermen, the courts and the DMR should take a closer look at verifiably sustainable rockweed harvesting. The consequences of commercial-scale harvests are unknown. There have been no sustainable harvesting studies of changes to the canopy structure from large commercial harvests.
Some commercial harvesters claim the rockweed belongs to them. The disclaimer on the licenses they signed indicates otherwise. The lawsuit is only about the unsettled legal issue regarding rockweed. Rights regarding clams, mussels or birds, etc., in the intertidal zone, have long been settled under public trust law.
Given the condition of the ocean from global warming, should Maine’s rockweed be harvested at all? If it is harvested, the 19th century industrial resource extraction model must be scrapped.