Mozuku Seaweed Farming
The BBC recently aired a documentary called ‘Japan: Earth’s Enchanted Islands’. As someone who has always been curious about visiting this part of the world and experiencing the way of life here, I really enjoyed it. It was beautifully shot, and it captured the way of life from perspectives of both humans and animals, and how they live in harmony with one and other.
One of my favourite parts of ‘The Southwest Island’ episode, was seeing the ocean farms of mozuku seaweed, a Japanese ‘super-food’ believed to contain cancer-curing properties (source: http://www.japanfs.org/en/takumi/takumi_id034107.html). It is farmed on a huge scale on the shallow seabed off of the island Okinawa, as seen in the above images. The seaweed is grown on long nets fixed to the seabed, which is cultivated by being vacuumed up through a winding tube and pumped back up to the boat, demonstrated by the scuba seaweed farmer above.
The seaweed beds have created a habitat for other forms of life, such as the alien seaslugs seen above. Some crawl, whilst others ‘fly’. Maintaining the balance between humans, vegetation and animals comes from a human responsibility to respect the environment from which we harvest, and as described by the narrator, “...still relies on traditional Japanese wisdom. It’s what they call satoumi: if you work harmoniously with nature, the sea will always provide.” What a beautiful way of life.
