F R O M T H E C R O W E ’ S N E S T
3 Cents vs The Boat Price
Acadian Seaplants of Nova Scotia, Canada, could be the single largest beneficiary of a commonly held resource of the citizens of Maine – rockweed. Maine’s DMR Plan Development Team (PDT) agreed in 2015 to allow more of the Maine coast to be harvested and under the terms agreed to would effectively privatize a resource that has been publicly held since the Colonial era. It will be privatized via a sector allocation system under which companies would be given harvest rights in sectors over long periods. As traditional small-scale local harvesters are driven out by longer sector contracts, more and more of the sectors would go to corporate mechanical harvesters. Critics of the PDT have said the participants were largely from or under the influence of the industry.
Acadian Seaplants also bought the state seaweed company of Ireland in 2014. Opponents there referred to Acadian’s transaction, buying what has always been the people’s commons, as a “blatant attempt to gain control of Irish Ascphyllum” – seaweed. The objection in part being that Acadian’s control of the Irish seaweed harvest would “deprive exiting seaweed harvesters of the right to harvest on the Irish coast and damage coastal communities.”
Seaweed has quietly become a high-demand commodity internationally at the same time it has been certified a critical habitat for many commercial fish species and the food chain they depend on. Among the big consumers are fertilizer companies, industrial animal feed producers and cosmetics companies. China is courting Irish seaweed producers to supply seaweed used in their fracking industry. That, it is feared, will drive up the price paid and increase the depletion rate of the resource.
Rockweed harvest volume in Maine went from 4.46 million pounds in 2001 to 14.11 million pounds in 2015. Harvesters were paid 3 cents per pound. Bob Steneck, marine biologist, PhD, at UMaine’s Darling Marine Center and participant in a recent global study of kelp forests, said, “Kelp is a great habitat for lobster, so keeping track of kelp abundance is important.”
If Acadian practices are sustainable as they claim, why are they buying up harvest rights in other countries?
Why are the state of Maine and the DMR, charged with overseeing this seaweed resource, seemingly bending over backward to give it away (3 cents is free) to a foreign country when it is essential habitat for its most valuable marine resource – lobster?