Saving the world with algae

DW (English)

A chef and a climate activist want to grow algae in Scotland. The World Wildlife Fund has now also joined them, hoping to replace many consumer products with algae.

Transcript

00:00Solutions to the climate crisis will take many forms, one of which is algae.

00:08That's according to chef Callum Munro.

00:13He comes down to the coast every other day to collect seaweed here on the Scottish Isle of Skye.

00:21Do you do this every week then?

00:23I do it maybe twice or two times a week actually.

00:26Yeah, see this one here which is, I would say, up there with the best is sea spaghetti.

00:32As you can tell why it's called sea spaghetti because it just looks exactly like this.

00:36Again, it's quite a subtle flavour, but you can use it just as you would spaghetti.

00:42Together with climate activist Shona Cameron, the two are trying to bring seaweed back into the kitchen.

00:47As a renewable alternative to fish and meat, seaweed is the vegetable of the sea and is available all year round.

00:55They're sharing these ideas with schools armed with recipes for the children to learn.

01:01How do we eat as humans change the climate?

01:03Seaweeds and bivalves were a huge part of culture here for centuries.

01:08Millennia people have eaten these species, but we've kind of lost touch with it a little bit.

01:13And how can we sort of reconnect people with that tradition?

01:17Shona Cameron envisions the coast as a garden.

01:23Somewhere that we can cultivate and use in a responsible way.

01:27And maybe how small scale community enterprises could start to use it as a way to support their local economy.

01:35Ian Matheson too wants to capitalise on the Isle of Skye seaweed by growing it.

01:41He's a trained fisherman, but for almost two years he's been farming seaweed as a side gig.

01:47It's more sustainable, he says.

01:49But first he must find out which types grow best in these waters.

01:58To begin with we'll be using this for bio-stimulants.

02:01But we need to send off for testing first, see what kind of nutrients and minerals it has.

02:07And then once we've discovered that we'll know what we want to do with it after that.

02:14Ian Matheson and other entrepreneurs founded the farm on an area spanning 40 hectares.

02:23We'll be putting in half the total farm area.

02:27And that should produce around 200 tonnes of kelp in the first year.

02:32And in the following year we'll put in the other half of the grid, so we'll be up to 400 tonnes.

02:38Alongside tourism, salmon farming is one of the Isle of Skye's most important industries.

02:43It provides jobs, but aquaculture also causes environmental damage.

02:51In recent years more and more kelp farmers have settled around the island.

02:55Some farms are already producing.

02:58The seaweed off Skye can grow to over two metres long, and that's completely fertiliser-free.

03:07Until now, processing has been the bottleneck.

03:10A gap in the market that Alison Baker is intent on filling.

03:14Her start-up EcoCascade is supported by the Scottish government.

03:18They've just invested in a new shredding plant.

03:25This seaweed is going to go into a research project for animal feed.

03:30But it's also this particular variety of kelp is very good for bio-stimulants as a soil improver.

03:39Alison Baker and her colleagues alike are banking on the small industry's potential to grow quickly.

03:45But so far large-scale commercial uptake has been slower than expected.

03:51We want to be able to process a lot of seaweed that can go onto a commercial market,

03:58because that will promote the growth of the industry,

04:02because farmers will be able to grow to order,

04:05they'll be able to increase the size of their farms and grow more seaweed.

04:09Seaweed farming is still far from replacing the salmon industry here.

04:13But residents on Skye seem open to the idea.

04:16Unlike in southern Britain, where fishers have protested the new industry,

04:20the residents of Skye are actively involved in the planning process.

04:28People just have to get used to it.

04:30Rediscover it, says chef Callum Munro.

04:36Think about it like any other vegetable, any other thing, but it just grows in the sea.

04:40But yeah, there's a definite maybe shift in mentality that might need to happen,

04:44but hopefully with more people trying the seaweed salads and things like that,

04:48it will become more normal.

04:51The sea is truly a treasure,

04:54and seaweed farming might just go some way towards saving it.

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