Council voices strong opposition to commercial seaweed harvesting

Mayo Co Council is to write to the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority (MARA) outlining its opposition to any applications for commercial harvesting of seaweed along the Mayo coastline.

The matter was raised at last week's meeting of the council by Cllr Marie-Therese Duffy who submitted a notice of motion calling on MARA "to refuse all pending and future applications from large-scale corporations seeking licences to harvest seaweed along the Mayo coastline in order to protect local traditional seaweed harvesting rights in Mayo communities".

Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Duffy said: “MARA is calling for submissions to commercially harvest seaweed, and this is very concerning. We need to protect this as a local tradition. Allowing big corporations to come in would set a new precedent and would be near impossible to reverse, so I ask the council to contact MARA on this and ask for the support of my colleagues.” 

Cllr Harry Barrett supported the motion, saying: “What people are worried about is that large commercial harvesters will be allowed exclusive rights and locals will be locked out of local resources, and so would have to work for big companies or be pushed out. I propose we call on the minister that there should be no blanket licence to any one company and that any licence issued would protect locals to continue their own work."

Cllr Barrett proposed writing to the Minister for Agriculture and Marine Martin Heydon, as well as MARA, and this proposal was unanimously approved by councillors. 

• Published as part of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.