Lydiane Mattio, PhD.
blue[c]weed – www.bluecweed.com – France & New Caledonia
Honorary Research Associate, University of Cape Town
WhatsApp New Caledonia +687 914183
Large-scale seaweed aquaculture has been a common practice and valuable source of income for centuries in Asia, but the potential is comparatively underexploited in the rest of the Indo-Pacific region. Over the past few years, Australia and New Zealand have developed significant expertise, raised substantial funds, and launched a national alliance to stimulate the industry in various sectors, including human, animal, and plant nutrition or environmental remediation. Elsewhere in the region, the tropical seaweed industry is poorly developed and fragmented. Seaweed productions consist mainly of the introduced Kappaphycus and Euchema for the carrageenan export market or a few species traditionally harvested for food. Recently however, several new projects are emerging, from transforming overgrowing Sargassum into fertilizers in Seychelles to cultivating Mozuku (Cladosiphon) in Tonga, feeding cows with Asparagopsis in Hawaii, or growing Caulerpa in French Polynesia. However, despite the rising interest in seaweeds globally, regulations and standards about the safety of seaweeds for human consumption, animal feed, or fertilizers are still very poor and are virtually non-existent in tropical regions. Funded by the Safe Seaweed Coalition, the SouthPACIWEED project is i) reviewing existing regulations and identifying gaps, ii) assessing risks associated with seaweed consumption and producing new data to provide a regional baseline (heavy metals, pollutants, iodine), and iii) establishing a regional working group that will work cooperatively to address the safety issues and lack of standards that may hinder the development and diversification of the seaweed industry regionally.