WELLINGTON, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- A roadmap, launched on Friday, showed how New Zealand could grow its emerging seaweed sector in a way for the country to gain economically, environmentally, socially and culturally.

The co-development of the Seaweed Sector framework, funded by the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge, outlines a vision of what New Zealand's future seaweed industry could look like and sets out a pathway for getting there. It provides a roadmap of priorities and knowledge gaps and has been refined via industry case studies.

The vision includes ensuring that a wide range of people are involved in the seaweed sector, developing high-value products, creating jobs, and environmental benefits by farming sustainably.

An exciting opportunity for New Zealand, seaweed can be turned into a range of products, from food and fertilizer to sunscreen and nutraceuticals. Some Kiwi companies are beginning to farm seaweed commercially, with others in the planning stages.

Now the industry and individual companies need to use the framework as they see fit, refining it as they need, said Rob Major, who leads the Sustainable Seas Challenge project and is a marine scientist at Cawthron Institute, a large science organization in New Zealand that co-led the project.

Nigel Bradly, CEO of EnviroStrat, also co-leading the project, said this enables scientists to identify and prioritize opportunities to achieve the vision that seaweed contributes significantly to New Zealand's economy and supports thriving ecosystems, communities and culture. Enditem

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