Seaweeds are so diverse, because they're such an ancient organism.
And is so important still today, in creating the life in the oceans, but also circulating
life onto the planet.
If we use the infrastructure in the ocean and created seaweed islands, we would actually
eliminate a lot of the climate change issues we have today.
Australia's an isolated continent and just like we have koalas
and gum trees on land, we've got very unique seaweed species, and these species are only
found in Australia.
We still don't know all of the species that exist.
Seaweeds are a platform of opportunity in sustainability, nutrition, and innovation.
I always say Australians were the first users of seaweed, because there's actually evidence
from 45,000 years ago in Tasmania where they used the kelps and they sewed them into water
carriers.
Kelp is a type of macroalgae or seaweed. And there are three main types of seaweed red
brown and green, and the kelps are a type of brown.
So in order to tackle climate change, we need to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide going
into the atmosphere, and we also need to look at ways of drawing down that carbon dioxide.
Kelp growing so quickly absorbs and sequesters a huge amount of carbon dioxide.
So the cycling of carbon through the capture of carbon dioxide and growing crops faster
in seawater than on land is one important way we can reduce our carbon emissions.
Seaweed doesn't rely on freshwater in its production at all.
We don't have to have arable land, and we can produce 50 times more on an area for example
our seaweed farm at one hectare produces as much as 50 hectares of wheat.
Seaweed farming was really only established in the 1940s and 50s, Kathleen Drew Baker
was an English scientist who uncovered the reproductive cycle of Nori and she unlocked
the lifecycle of that seaweed, and that has been the first success story in seaweed cultivation
in the world.
So when we farm our seaweed, we pump in salt water from the local estuary that is right
next door to the wheat refinery, and the wheat refineries got anaerobic digestion and fermentation
processes going on, they produce natural carbon dioxide, and we capture that natural carbon
dioxide, and we pump that into the seawater just like big bubbles, like bathing in a fizzy
drink, and the seaweed can take up the carbon dioxide very rapidly.
And that carbon is directly changed into the seaweed biomass.
The water returns to cleaner than what it was when we
brought it in from the river, and you get a valuable biomass,
out of what would otherwise have been nothing here other than waste streams.
Photosynthesis is the best carbon capturing mechanism we have.
Even the small amount of carbon dioxide we are putting into the atmosphere is having
devastating consequences on our climate, and that's when we have really disturbing impacts
on the ecosystem that's supporting us.
We've been working with golden kelp for over five years,
and looking at how to breed it.
What we've noticed over the last few years is that kelp
is seemingly disappearing.
Now that we're changing the
temperature patterns in the oceans,
we're starting to see changes in the
patterns of seaweeds and it
can be quite catastrophic like
in the case of disappearing
kelp forests.
The main drivers of giant kelp
forest loss in Tasmania
are ocean warming and climate change.
It's one of the worst places in
the world for kelp forest loss.
It's so dramatic, it's like going
from a rain forest to Moonbase Alpha.
It's really hard to imitate nature,
it's really hard to put a
seaweed back into an environment,
because the environment
doesn't support it anymore.
A very significant step forward
is to start farming seaweeds
in place of carbon intensive
technologies in food production,
in materials production, even just a
10% replacement of seaweed in wheat
production or meat production in
foods would have a major impact.
So we can make biodegradable
plastic affectively from seaweed.
One of the ways we would like
to farm seaweed in the future
is looking at offshore systems
for Australian seaweeds.
So now we have a mussel farm that's
been established on the 50 hectare
area allocated to shellfish farming.
The benefit of growing a product like
mussels alongside seaweed, what we've
learned on, you know, on land-based
agriculture is that monoculture is
not as good for the environment and
the same applies for the oceans,
where there's a lot of seaweed
growing that's where the
healthiest muscles grow.
If you've got something growing
and producing carbon dioxide in
the water, it starts to acidify it,
and then you grow seaweed which takes
up the carbon dioxide and it buffers
that, and if you have more seaweeds,
taking up more carbon dioxide
than what's produced, you actually
offset ocean acidification,
and it returns it to the state
that life can persist in.
So kelp farming is not only
restorative it's regenerative.
We are working on establishing an
ocean based inshore kelp farm.
Kelp likes the movement of the tide
and the upwelling of nutrients and
makes it very difficult to grow on
land. And we're so excited that
we've just had a breakthrough and
have had success with the breeding.
Then there's a whole
world of smart technology,
where the molecules in seaweed
are so poorly explored to date,
it's a bit like the Amazon
rainforest but it's even richer and
more diverse and very different
because it's in the salty oceans,
and the molecules we're
finding are fascinating.
They're molecules that
are highly charged,
and they mimic human connective
tissue for example so we can print
full thickness skin tissue now with
the extract from our seaweeds.
There's many ways that
seaweed as a new material,
or food or feed on the planet
can service a better environment.
So it's really exciting for Australia
because we're sitting on undiscovered
renewable, sustainable resources, and
they have to go back into the cycle.
That's how life on Earth exists
it's a circle of nutrients and
chemicals being released and
digested creating new life again.