Founded in 2003, the Alaskan Native Conservancy is a Native-led organization that seeks to “protect and preserve endangered habitats and traditional food sources…while at the same time counteracting climate change…. and…strengthen[ing] Native Alaskans’ inherent rights.” It is living proof that seaweed farming can both empower marginalized communities and solve climate change. CIR has already previously discussed both the environmental impacts and economic viability of seaweed farming, so I will not focus on them here. Rather, I will explore how seaweed farming, specifically used by the Alaskan Native Conservancy, has served indigenous communities.
The Alaskan Native Conservancy recognizes that the “major barrier to entry into the kelp mariculture industry” is access to parent kelp seed stock. Seed stock is necessary, the Alaskan Native Conservancy claims, to establish a healthy network of kelp farms in Prince William Sound. Their model for portable kelp seed nursery operations enables low-income and rural communities in Alaska to create their own seaweed farms. In combination with its growing economic viability, seaweed farming could prove to be the fiscal catalyst for many impoverished communities.
Creative Investment Research previously predicted that seaweed farming would increasingly become an entry point for disadvantaged people into the economic market. Organizations, such as the Alaskan Native Conservancy, show that this prediction is coming true. They also underscore a growing trend of smaller companies, usually led by local communities, entering or creating environmentally-friendly sectors of the market.
It makes me hopeful to see the grip of huge corporations, who have not even a shred of care for the environment, loosen. Perhaps their innovation will save my future, our future, from environmental devastation.