Beyond the win-win discourse: designing seaweed farming for long-term success

Abstract

Communication about seaweed aquaculture has so far been dominated by its many socio-economic and ecological advantages. A key risk of this ‘hype’ is the potential loss of support from communities affected by seaweed cultivation if reality fails to live up to expectations. This could have justice and equity implications for impacted communities, and undermine potential benefits for those communities, as well as affecting the long-term success of emerging industries. This paper highlights experiences from other marine sectors in which a similar emphasis on benefits has drowned out discussion of potential costs, often leading to initial success but long-term failure. We highlight the importance of clearly communicating possible negative impacts, and meaningfully engaging stakeholders to shape marine interventions. Finally, we recommend further research into the social dimensions of seaweed farming in geographies where this practice is nascent, and increased attention to the potential trade-offs of scaling up seaweed cultivation.