h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We seem to live in a world where advantage is taken constantly over our good nature, we should do this, we should do that - and many of us do. i have noticed however, that over the years there has been less and less activity and interest over some fundamental issues.

When i was at school we were told that by 2000, the world would be essentialy ruled by just a few companies - -

So here i am, ive moved to Norway, where they all pride themselves on nature and how much they care for it ( there is a lot of it)Im sitting in my boat fishing and i see a large trawler lowering a device looking like a comb over the side and its now dragging this thing up and down. A few days later its in the same place, how can they do that, dont they know that there are animals and plants down there. This goes on for months.

So i start doing some investigation, everybody is in an uproar about this but the state it seems allows it. i do some more research and i find that seaweed has all but dissapeared from the south coast, its fast dissapearing in the north and still its allowed.
Then i disover that France has been doing it for years - then i find out that some countries have lost all their seaweed from overharvesting, it has caused considerable distress to small coastal communities as the fish have dissapeared as well.

it turns out that when the higher plants go - lower plants move in - plants like the ulva specis - now it appears that France has a huge seaweed problem, Ulva is washing ashore in such vast amounts the decomposition is producing hydrogen sulphide in quantities enough to kill -- many animals have been found dead on land and it has killed 2 men - many beaches have been closed - France has just laid out 136 million euros to the clean up - but of course no mention of seaweed harvesting having caused the problem - the same thing is happening on the channel coast of Britain, now the channel islands.
Where are the environmental camepigners, where are Green peace, Friends of the earth? governmental environment organisations - do they all work for the company that is behind this??? or perhaps im completely wrong??
could it be that we are all so complacent that nobody cares?

I haven't got as far as researching environmental campaigners but it appears some think it harvesting isn't a problem in the short term at least

http://www.seaweed.ie/uses_ireland/irishseaweedharvesting.html
http://www.seaweed.ie/uses_ireland/irishsustainability.html

The French green algae problem is not seaweed trawling related. It's from eutrophication caused by too many pig farms and effluent getting into the water.

The French NGOs are all over it, and quite rightly.

sprout

thats the official line - i have a paper which says how much phosphates and nitrogen seaweed removes - that in itself doesnt mean a thing - but if you take the fact that the influx of ulva started in the 70s - when seaweed trawling began - plus frances harvest of 70,000 tons plus per year then you begin to have another picture.
lets say for arguments sake that research is controlled by the seaweed harvesting companies - as stated in the paper produced by the environment agency on seaweed harvesting in northern ireland - seaweed harvesting also earns top dollar - is it likely that they are going to say aheeem - well actually, its us.
What i say is simply this - 2% of the worlds oceans are capable of bearing seaweed - they are the major factor in cleaning the sea - in fact most waters are simply deserts - with nearly all the sea life concentrated in that area - given all the facts are you still prepared to say - lets risk it?

loonycat, both papers produced by seawed harvesting concerns - if you are really interested i can produce endless papers to the contrary - mostly from last years seaweed symposium - i have letters expressing deep concern from seaweed harvesting companies over the methods used here -
this is how it goes - seaweed is naturally resilient - it is designed to be ravaged by stroms and events at sea - the weed here is also designed to die off in the winter - along come your trawlers to take advantage of this - the plants do grow back - but the associated flora and fauna do not - this it seems is what the companies want - gives a cleaner yeild - the only problem is that seaweed has several functions - like sediment removal - if you take the seaweed out at the wrong time in sediment rich seas the plants become overwhelmed and dont replant or grow back, they cant because there is not enough light due to the sediment - this is happening in the south of norway - big time -in fact in places 90% is gone - in the north the same again, the balance is upset by continuous removal of immature plants, no chance for colonies to reach maturity . loss of sponges, corals,etc - also loss of the factors that balance the sea urchin population - the seabed there is barren - just sea urchins -
mature kelp forests have up to 100,000 individuals per cubic metre -

incedentaly, i read the same papers - when i began looking into this - i felt the locals were making a fuss over very little - then i started questioning the easily available data and read further - supposing the algal blooms in the north sea can be traced to seaweed being disrupted - large areas being denuded - - nature conservation, taking care of the environment is the big thing - simply put seaweed harvesting in any form in the north sea would be banned outright -