Wild seaweed is becoming an increasingly popular food source and moneymaker across South America, says Take Part. Most of the region’s seaweed is gathered from the wild, rather than cultivated as it is other parts of the world, like Asia. Of Chile’s 30,000 wild harvesters, most are women.
South Americans have long included seaweed in their cuisine, adding it instead of meat to the stew known as charquicán, as well as to empanadas, ceviches, and salads. Now demand for the plant is rising as some of South America’s best chefs put it on their menus. Think of it as a “re-enchantment with algae,” said Axel Manríquez, head chef at the Plaza San Francisco Hotel in Santiago, and one of the Chile’s biggest seaweed advocates.
Apart from culinary uses, seaweed is used as a fertilizer and in livestock feed. Carrageenan, a lubricating compound that occurs in red seaweed, shows up in everything from pharmaceuticals to cosmetics. But some experts have warned against taking too much seaweed from the wild.
“It is possible that overexploitation of natural seaweed resources could lead to significant ecological, economic, and social consequences at local, regional, and even global scales,” a global team of scientists wrote in the Journal of Applied Phycology. The article’s authors called for South America to develop protections for its seaweed, especially in countries like Ecuador and Peru. In Chile, the government encourages harvesters to repopulate seaweed beds.