Bailey Moritz
World Wildlife Fund, 1250 24th Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20037, United States
Social license to operate is defined as an ongoing negotiation between a community and an entity that has social and environmental implications associated with its activities and requires the support and trust of its community to be successful (Rooney 2014, Billing 2018). Achievement of social license may be one of the most significant barriers the seaweed industry faces as it continues to expand, particularly along coastlines where farming is a relatively new activity and numerous users share limited ocean space. Any new seaweed farm or company must consider at the outset how they will build, and maintain, social license in their unique local context. This presentation will lay out challenges regarding community interactions faced by seaweed farming operations and describe case studies of strategies different organizations have employed to address social license in their local waters. Many of these experiences offer transferable learnings and ideas that bridge kelp farming regions, including what the industry can learn from recent message testing data that indicate ways to improve public perceptions of seaweed aquaculture.