Marine biologist highlights the importance of seaweed in new children's book

Story by CBC/Radio-Canada • May 4, 2023

Seaweed: not so pleasant when it brushes against your leg while swimming, pretty smelly when it's washed ashore, and even smellier when your roommate roasts it in the oven late at night.

To Amanda Swinimer, it's also part of her "office" and her livelihood

Swinimer is a professional seaweed harvester and a marine biologist based on Vancouver Island.

She's also an author — and recently published a children's book highlighting how important seaweed is for nutrition, and for protecting the planet against climate change.
A day in the life

As a seaweed harvester, Swinimer says her days vary depending on which type of seaweed she's after.

But she typically starts by putting on a thick wetsuit with a hood, and gloves and boots. She packs up her mesh harvest bags, grabs her mask, fins and snorkel, and heads to the beach.

Then, she snorkels out into the ocean, about 150 metres offshore.

When harvesting bull kelp, she trims the blades off the plants, avoiding cutting the stipe — the large part at the bottom. If she keeps those intact, she says, the plant will regenerate.

Swinimer then packs the blades into her mesh bags and hauls them back to the beach, before going back out to do it all over again.

"It's a remarkable place that I get to call my office where I work," she said. "There's all kinds of creatures that I've interacted with over the years."

The most impressive sea creature she's come across was a Giant Pacific octopus, she says.

"I noticed out of the peripheral of my mask this red colour. It was the head of an octopus and it was about the size of my pillow on my bed, like huge."

Sustainability

Creatures like the octopus rely on seaweed for survival in one way or other, Swinimer said.

According to the Marine Conservation Society, seaweed produces about 70 per cent of the world's oxygen.

The society says seaweed also absorbs carbon dioxide more efficiently than trees.

"They're just really, really critical in keeping climate change from running amok and more than it already is and nourishing every single species in the ocean, from the tiny zooplankton all the way up to the orca," Swinimer said.


Kelp forests act as an important carbon store as they filter the ocean's water, and provide habitat for marine animals.© Canadian Pacifico Seaweed

Nutrition

Seaweed is also packed with vitamins and minerals, and contains healthy fatty acids, according to Swinimer.

"People have been using seaweeds as medicines and to support health for thousands of years," she said.

As for how to best eat it, it depends on the kind of seaweed you're using, she says. Her favourite is dried dulse, on its own.


Bull kelp is a type of seaweed or kelp that can be found on B.C. coasts

© Forage & Feast/CBC

"Not all seaweeds are edible," Swinimer adds — but none are poisonous, either.

However, Health Canada has advised against consuming hijiki seaweed, due to high levels of inorganic arsenic.

Education for kids

All these points and more are things Swinimer wants to highlight to young readers in her book, The Science and Superpowers of Seaweed: A Guide for Kids.

"I teach people all the way from young kids to college and university students," she told North by Northwest host Margaret Gallagher.

"So many kids, when they're exposed to seaweed, they become really, really interested and excited about it. But a lot of kids just never get that chance."