Good Stuff: How seaweed is going to save the world
Take a breath in as you read this.
Breath out, and repeat.
That second breath you took was brought to you by seaweed.
This humble aquatic plant is the planet’s unlikely underdog, here to help save the world from catastrophic climate change. Like trees on land, seaweeds and seagrasses provide us with oxygen and can absorb five times more carbon than land-based plants. One of the most productive ecosystems on earth, they help regulate our climate and act as carbon sinkholes. Seaweeds and seagrasses provide critical habitat to hundreds of marine species, often as they're just starting in life. In short, these underwater forests are essential for a healthy ocean, and in turn, a healthy planet.
Seaweed farming has the power to help revolutionise the way we produce food. Kelp is one of the fastest-growing organisms on Earth, and farming it has the potential to absorb billions of tonnes of CO2. Marine ecologist, Dr. Pia Winberg, can produce 50 times more seaweed than wheat in the same space of land at her seaweed farm on NSW’s south coast - without requiring any fertilizers or chemicals.
We can use seaweed to create biodegradable plastic, helping solve another of the ocean’s big problems. Seaweed can be used as a sustainable form of biofuel. Feeding cattle a small amount of a seaweed species found in Australia has been shown to reduce their methane emissions by up to 86 per cent. Increasing the production of seaweed in Australia provides us with the opportunity to improve the health of our oceans, create jobs and produce products like food and cosmetics - all while making significant progress on mitigating our carbon emissions.
If you’re in Sydney this weekend, be sure to check out this festival all about the humble seaweed. Featuring talks from leading scientists like Professor Tim Flannery, an art exhibition and even guided snorkels, it’s a chance to quite literally immerse yourself in the wonder of seaweeds.
If you can’t make it, get your seaweed fix in this month’s Good Stuff Guide instead, which celebrates the planet’s majestic underwater forests.
WATCH: Living legend Tim Flannery explains how seaweed can be a big part of the solution to the climate crisis
WATCH: Meet the scientists who are quite literally replanting the lost underwater forests of Cabbage Tree Bay - a stunning marine sanctuary in the heart of Sydney.
