As expected, the “environmentally friendly” new industry of seaweed farming that is being promoted for Puget Sound is apparently being used in Canada for, wait for it, producing feed for cattle. No joke. This has got to be one of the worst tradeoffs possible for turning our Salish Sea into a seaweed farm, on top of the never-ending conversion of beaches for aquaculture, etc. If you want to weight in, take this article and write to your state congresspeople, DNR and others and tell them that this is not what we expected in moving into seaweed farming
Sidney-based Cascadia Seaweed has been given $4.3 million by the federal government to establish a 100-hectare seaweed farm and agri-feed processing facility close to Prince Rupert. Cascadia, which combines cultivation expertise, First Nations partnerships and brand development, currently has about 26 hectares of seaweed under cultivation in waters off the province’s coast. Andrew Duffy reports. (Times Colonist)
Filed under: Aquaculture, Around the Salish Sea |
The article doesn’t say what kind of seaweed they will be farming, but a small amount of seaweed added to cattle feed can greatly reduce their methane emissions. I would rather the seaweed come from a cultivated farm than ripped out of open habitat. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14062022/cow-seaweed-methane/#:~:text=Brominata%20is%20made%20of%20a,they%20burp%2C%20called%20enteric%20methane.
The issue I see is that, just like geoduck aquaculture, we appear to rapidly moving towards this “known good” without discussing the issues of “how many seaweed farms do we want?” “How much of our Sound are we going to lease to these commercial enterprises and how do we say, “we have enough.”
We have seen that the massive move to geoduck farming in the 2000s has led to environmentally fragile bays in the South Sound and other locales being covered with nets. No one seems to have any ability to stop this, or even question it. The enviros like Laura Hendricks and her orgs have successfully sued Taylor and the Corp over and over again, winning almost every time, showing that the laws behind the industry are not adequate to slowing this industry. What kind of future for our Sound do we want? Should it be covered in commercial aquaculture? Is there a better place for it? (i.e. off the coast?). Remember that there is also a push for Kelp farming as well going on. Another industry wanting to put farms in the Sound.
Additionally, beyond just the methane emissions, most environmental scientists are desperately pushing to get us to lower our meat consumption, as it’s an incredibly environmentally destructive food. I say this as a meat lover who struggles to eat as little as possible throughout the week.