The Seaweed Breakthrough
Our vision to protect the worlds seaweeds
About
What is the Seaweed Breakthrough?
The Seaweed Breakthrough initiative aims to catalyse global action to conserve, restore, and sustainably manage seaweed ecosystems.
Global seaweed production has tripled in size and doubled its value in the last two decades, reaching 38 million tonnes (wet weight) in 2022. Currently, it was worth an estimated $17 billion USD and represents over 50% of marine and coastal aquaculture production worldwide. The industry directly employs over 6M farmers, primarily in low to middle income countries, and with significant recent growth in Europe and North America, this number will rise. Seaweeds also provide essential ecosystem services (e.g., carbon cycling, coastal protection, biodiversity enhancement). The industry and the wider environment relies on the wild seaweed stocks to provide seed stocks, climate-resilient strains for the future and a healthy ecosystem. Wild seaweeds, however, face devasting impacts from human activities and the climate crisis, compounded by minimal protection globally from overharvesting and other direct human impacts.
The Seaweed Breakthrough initiative forms part of the Ocean Breaklthrough initiatives and has been accepted on to the United Nations Global Climate Action Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA) portal as a recognised and active Cooperative Climate Initiative (CCI).
The Seaweed Breakthrough also has a close partnership with the United Nations Global Seaweed Initiative.
