Vincent Doumeizel - The Seaweed Revolution: How Seaweed Has Shaped Our Past and Can Save Our Future

THE SEAWEED REVOLUTION

The Seaweed Revolution

How Seaweed Has Shaped Our Past and Can Save Our Future

Vincent Doumeizel

Translated by
Charlotte Coombe

Illustrations by

Neige Doumeizel

HERO, AN IMPRINT OF LEGEND TIMES GROUP LTD

51 Gower Street

London WC1E 6HJ

United Kingdom

www.hero-press.com

First published in French as La Rvolution des algues by ditions des
quateurs/Humensis in 2022

This translation first published by Hero in 2023

ditions des Equateurs/Humensis, 2022

Translation Charlotte Coombe, 2023

The right of the author and translator to be identified as the author and translator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.

This translation was funded by the Lloyds Register Foundation

Printed in Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Ltd, Padstow

ISBN (HARDBACK): 978-1-91564-385-8

ISBN (SPECIAL EDITION): 978-1-91564-346-9

All the pictures in this volume are reprinted with permission or presumed to be in the public domain. Every effort has been made to ascertain and acknowledge their copyright status, but any error or oversight will be rectified in subsequent printings.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.

Atlantic wakame seaweed at the Seaweed Solutions farm in Norway.

Seaweed farming in Xiapu, China (photo: Shutterstock).

Himanthalia elongata, also known as sea spaghetti, in Brittany, France.

The illustrator with a Mwani Mama working on a red seaweed (Eucheuma) farm in Paje, Zanzibar.

Author visiting a seaweed farm in Lofoten Islands, Norway.

40-metre-high Macrocystis pyrifera forest in Chile.

Ascophyllum in Oban, Scotland.

Author with photobioreactors for scientific research in Roscoff Marine Lab, France.

Workers drying organic seaweed (cabbage) in Khanh Hoa province, Vietnam (photo: Shutterstock).

Woman in Bizerte, Tunisia, seeding red seaweed in tubular net.

Author and Durvillaea in Tasmania, Australia.

Author in Lesconil, France, visiting Algolesko, one of the largest seaweed farms in Europe.

Giant kelp (Microcystis) harvested in Kelp Blue Offshore farm, Namibia.

Notpla Oohos, edible bubbles made from seaweed.

A range of seaweed-textiles by the designer Violaine Buet (photo: Pierre-Yves Dinasquet).

Seaweed dresses by Runa Ray.

The Seaweed Revolution

Rope-grown seaweed.

Seaweed is often misunderstood and seen as a form of pollution, when it is only a symptom of it. In fact, seaweed offers an endless source of innovation and concrete solutions that could help us address some of the major challenges facing our generation.

Our society has spurned seaweed, undoubtedly the worlds greatest untapped resource, but the climate emergency and global population growth are now pushing us to reconsider this overlooked treasure.

If we learn how to grow it sustainably, seaweed could feed people, replace plastic, decarbonize the economy, cool the atmosphere, clean up the oceans, rebuild marine ecosystems and reduce social injustice by providing jobs and income to coastal populations where fishing resources are disappearing.

An essential pillar of life on earth, seaweed reproduces quickly and can grow dozens of metres in a few days without needing food, fresh water or pesticides.

Its time to dive into this green, brown and red ocean filled with unexplored resources. If we want to rebuild ecosystems instead of destroying them, seaweed is an excellent place to start.

The first form of life on this planet was algae. Born out of a process of photosynthesis that has existed for 3.5 billion years, single-celled blue bacteria evolved in symbiosis with other cells to produce microalgae. Essential to life on earth, they are our most distant ancestors. Made up of single cells, these microalgae evolved and became more complex, forming multicellular organisms. And so, over a billion years ago, macroalgae appeared.