The status of commercial algal utilization in New Zealand

In 1988, the New Zealand government instituted a moratorium on the issue of licenses to harvest wild stocks of marine macroalgae. In the intervening y ears, exports of algal products from New Zealand have declined while import s have increased. Exports of agar have decreased by 85%. For algal food pro ducts, exports have decreased while imports have increased by 500%. Collect ion of unattached rhodophytes requires no permit, and some special exemptio ns to the permit moratorium were made for abalone farmers, so seaweed conti nues to be harvested from wild stocks. In 1997, the two main rhodophyte gen era harvested were Pterocladia and Gracilaria, with approximately 60 and 10 0 t dry weight harvested respectively. The two main phaeophyte genera harve sted were Macrocystis and Durvillaea, with 51.8 and 34.5 t (wet weight) har vested respectively. Algal farming in New Zealand is still in its infancy; while there are 72 farms licensed to grow seaweed (owned by 29 different en tities), only 12 of these are actively producing algae. Approximately 6 t ( wet weight) was cultured in 1995, and the majority was used as feedstock fo r animals cultured at the same sites.