Bull kelp harvest from Palmerston

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32636, 18 June 1971, Page 8

Bull kelp harvest from Palmerston

Plans to harvest bull kelp from Kaikoura for export to Japan have been abandoned because the coast is regarded as too dangerous; but kelp will be harvested from the beaches near Palmerston, North Otago.

Research into the effects of an export industry on kelp regeneration, erosion and fish and other marine life will be undertaken by the zoology department of Canterbury University, using the Edward Percival Marine Laboratory at Kaikoura as a base.

The bull kelp—its proper name is durvillea—is a source of algin or alginic acid, derivatives of which have many uses in industry. The kelp grows round New Zealand, in southern parts of Australia and Tasmania, in South America and in the Sub-Ant-arctic islands. A trial bale of the Kaikoura kelp was sent to Japan early this year by the Kamogawa Chemical Industry Company, in conjunction with Pyne, Gould, Guinness Ltd, and approval has now been given by the Marine Department to harvest 10,000 tons of the wet kelp from the North Otago beaches. The kelp is sun dried and the quantity that will be

shipped will come down to 500 tons in weight. Professor G. A. Knox, head of the zoology department at the University of Canterbury, said yesterday that interest in New Zealand’s bull kelp had also been shown by an Australian company which was harvesting Tasmani«n kelp.

Nothing was really known about the effects an industry would have, Professor Knox said, nor was it known if there was enough to establish an economic industry. Study was needed on the rate of regeneration of the plant, on the effect on paua, butterfish and other marine life if the kelp became depleted and did not regenerate quickly enough, and on the possibility of an increase in erosion. The work could be done on any stretch of coast, Professor Knox said, and could be extended throughout New Zealand.

Finance for the programme was being sought from the scientific distribution committee of the Golden Kiwi lottery; co-operation of the Botany Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research would be iven.