Friday, 24 August 2018

Kelpie's Retreat?

A fuss is developing over an application by Ayr-based Marine Biopolymers to Marine Scotland to mechanically strip some 34,000 tonnes of kelp per annum from around Scottish waters (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/24/kelp-dredging-proposal-criticised-by-conservationists-scotland). The kelp is desirable to the company as commercially viable 'alginates' can be extracted from it. Although this stripping represents less than 0.2% of the kelp beds and the proposal aims to be 'sustainable' (by, for example, not returning to locations for 5 years), a number of conservationist organisations have expressed concerns. They are not convinced that we have sufficient knowledge of the ecology of the Scottish kelp beds to judge whether the proposal is genuinely sustainable (to the kelp and its associated animals) and point out the importance of this 'seaweed' in taking up carbon from the atmosphere. 
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