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U.S. NEWS Monday 6 May 2019

Uncertain future for 'super' seaweed after court ruling

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — ruled.
Maine's seaweed business Gordon Smith, a Portland
has grown like a weed in attorney representing the
recent years, with propo- group of landowners, said
nents touting it as both a one of their motivators was
"superfood" and an eco- conservation. Rockweed
nomic generator for the ru- has been harvested at an
ral state — but the industry accelerated rate in recent
is now facing sticky new re- years, causing some in
strictions. coastal Maine to question
Maine has a long tradition its sustainability.
of seaweed harvesting, in The harvest of seaweed in
which the algae is gath- Maine reached its highest
ered for a wide variety of point in recent recorded
commercial uses, including history in 2018, at more In this Nov. 4, 2015, file photo, kelp grows on spools of twine in
some popular food prod- than 22 million pounds (10 an aquarium at a lab at the University of New England in Bid-
ucts. Now, a recent court million kilograms), accord- deford, Maine.
ruling could dramatically ing to the Maine Depart- Associated Press
change the nature of the ment of Marine Resources.
business in Maine, which The harvest in the 2000s clude dulse, sugar kelp, Irish have their own environ-
has seen the harvest of the was frequently less than 10 moss and others — have mental concerns, arguing
gooey stuff grow by leaps million pounds (4.5 million cachet in Maine and be- in the lawsuit they "think
and bounds in the last de- kilograms), before interest yond. Saturday was the fi- that rockweed is a vital
cade, industry members began to shoot up in the nal day of Maine's first "Sea- cornerstone of the Gulf
said. early part of this decade. weed Week," which put a of Maine food web, and
The state's highest court Rockweed typically makes focus on restaurants that other species depend on
ruled last month that per- up most of the state's sea- use the product. Part of the it," Smith said. "The concern
mission from coastal land- weed harvest, which was driving force behind the had to do with the extrac-
owners is needed for har- valued at a little less than seaweed industry's boom is tion of a resource that all
vesting rockweed, a type $1 million at the docks last the accompanying wave these fisheries depend on."
of seaweed that's critical year. But the total econom- of interest in health foods, Seaver, Angera and oth-
to the industry. The Maine ic impact seaweed has "neutraceuticals" and nutri- ers in the business said it's
Seaweed Council, an in- on the state is around $20 tional supplements. It's also unclear how the ruling will
dustry advocacy group, million per year, said Trey become more popular to shape the seaweed har-
has called the ruling "a dis- Angera, a member of the feed to cows because of vest in years to come, other
appointing setback" that Maine Seaweed Council. possible environmental than that harvesters will
will force harvesters to ad- And these days, edible benefits. now need to ask permission
just. seaweeds — which also in- But the property owners from landowners.q
The court's decision could
mandate the implementa-
tion of rules that are difficult
to enforce, said George
Seaver, a vice president
of Waldoboro firm Ocean
Organics who has been in-
volved in processing rock-
weed for 40 years. Rock-
weed is harvested from
tidal mudflats where prop-
erty boundaries can be ill-
defined, he said.
"You can't put a pin in the
mud, and you certainly
can't put a pin in the water,"
Seaver said. "One of the
fundamental things about
the court case is who owns
the intertidal zone."
The Maine Supreme Judi-
cial Court's ruling was an
outgrowth of a lawsuit in-
volving Acadian Seaplants,
a Canadian company that
has harvesting operations
in rural Maine. The court
ruled that rockweed grown
in the intertidal zone is the
private property of upland
land owners. That means it
"cannot be harvested by
members of the public as a
matter of right," the justices