Maine's rockweed disputes

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

The Boston Globe has published an article on a struggle on the Maine Coast between some coastline property owners and people harvesting that bubbly green or brown seaweed called rockweed (it grows on rocks) in the area between high and low tide. Rockweed is an increasingly valuable commodity used for fertilizers and food products. Its expanding harvesting raises some interesting issues about the rights of property owners vs. those who want to gather stuff from what fishermen and many others like to see as “the commons.’’

Complaining property owners don’t like the noise of rockweed harvesters operating power boats and mechanized equipment to remove the seaweed from rocks that might be only a few yards away from shoreline houses, more than a few owned by affluent summer people. And they and some ecologists complain that extensive stripping away of rockweed hurts the coastal environment. They say the harvesting, now a $20 million industry in the Pine Tree State, reduces habitats for juvenile lobster, cod, and other important species that use rockweed for protection and food.

The state’s Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that the harvesters must ask property owners’ permission before harvesting. “We agree that rockweed in the intertidal zone belongs to the upland property owner and therefore is not public property, is not held in trust by the state for public use, and cannot be harvested by members of the public as a matter of right,” Justice Jeffrey Hjelm wrote in the majority opinion. Of course, harvesters could ask for proof that the property owners’ deeds cover land extending to the shore.

The Maine Coast is long and convoluted, and so rockweed harvesting will continue to be very difficult to monitor.

As more human uses are found for animal and plant life along the shore, expect more such conflicts.

To read The Globe’s story, please hit this link.