Greetings, leatherjackets! (family Monacanthidae, not the lawn pests)
First up, we wanted to let you know about a little end of winter sale we have running until the end of the month. You can grab 20% off a long sleeve shirt before the sun gets too bitey (add a shirt to your cart and use code: AUGUST), and what's more, any order is eligible for a FREE Gold Flakes kelp infused Fleur de Sel sea salt (add a salt to your cart and use code: SALTY). We're making way for our new packaging, so this is your last chance to snap up a salt in those adorable little glass jars. It's the perfect time to shop seaweed!
Secondly, we'd like to start something new with this newsletter. We love sharing what we're up to and interested in with you all – but we're also aware that there's a wealth of knowledge, experience, different lifeways and points of view represented by our subscribers. We thought we might start throwing out some questions to the brains trust, to see if we can solve some of the issues we're facing more collaboratively. Currently we're scouting around for some funding to enable a project we have under development with Kaurna First Nations and Flinders University. We're looking for “no strings attached” grants and the like, rather than investment (at this stage we need to remain independent and not dilute the First Nations ownership of Moonrise). If you know of anything that might fit the bill, comment here or shoot us an email to hello@moonriseseaweed.farm
Lastly, we haven't forgotten our promise to share a bit more behind the scenes detail about our organisational structure, financing, etc. This is still a work in progress but we are figuring out how to best embed our values into a formal constitution that we can share with you all. We can share that in the 22/23 financial year, we were able to pay $10,000 in consultation fees to Kaurna First Nations Elders (thanks to support from Sustainable Table), which we intend to continue with moving forward. Compensating Community members for their time, guidance, ecological and cultural knowledge will always be our top priority at Moonrise. We also donated $360 to Bush Heritage Australia. The remainder of our operational budget went to insurance, production, postage, licences, web hosting, accounting, etc – all the background costs of running even a very small business. We are hopeful that 2024 will see us receive a modest wage!
Also, here's some links from around the web:
Seaweed farming for carbon dioxide caputure would take up too much of the ocean. Well, yeah. We need to rapidly, drastically cut emissions – seaweed ain't gonna let us keep living beyond planetary limits.
Results from the largest scale, longest experiment feeding Asparagopsis seaweed to cattle are out – and they are underwhelming. As we've mentioned previously, in order to get the cows to eat the seaweed extract (in this case in canola oil), they need to be in a feedlot environment – and as you can see from the above study, even these feedlot cattle ate 7.93% less and gained 15.1kg less weight than the control cattle. Also, you know all those articles suggesting red seaweed can save the planet by reducing livestock emissions by 90%? Well, this study found much more modest reductions, more like 28% (or 19% if they kept feeding the cattle another 35 days until they reached the average weight of the control group cattle). You know what actually reduces livestock emissions? Eating less meat (starting by increasing the efficiency of the meat we do eat – using the whole animal, eating locally grown, reducing food waste), and making sure the meat we do eat is farmed regeneratively. [Not to say there's no place for seaweed in livestock production – half of the grain grown globally goes to animal feed, and displacing some of this with seaweed has real potential for ecological outcomes and improvements to animal health. But, in the words of more than one anonymous seaweed researcher, 'poisoning cows with bromoform' may not be the silver bullet it's being touted as.].
Why we need to respect Earth's last great wilderness – the ocean. Really enjoyed this perspective.
Some amazing images here amongst the finalists for 2023 Ocean Photographer of the Year.
& at that, we leave you for another month (….ish). As always, there aren't enough thanks in the world for your support, interest, trust and enthusiasm!
Keep frothing, legends.
Chloe & Brad
Succinct and informative as always Chloe. Thank you and keep doing what you're doing! :)