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Seaweeds and sea otters have a symbiotic relationship as evidenced by the rafts of sea otters (Enhydrus lutra), numbering in the hundreds, bobbing amongst the kelp beds just north of Tofino in Kyuquot Sound, Vancouver Island. These furry creatures are closely intertwined with the life …

In 2017, I retired from a twenty-six-year career as Dr. Isabella Uzaraga, a palliative care physician. I told my colleagues that I had given twenty-six years to medicine and I wanted to give back to the planet. At the time, my husband had already retired …

Although Canada is surrounded by naturally growing seaweed, Canadians consume only a small proportion of the harvested wild or cultivated seaweeds. Yet, in 2016, Canada imported over $11 million dollars of seaweed products mainly from Japan, Korea and China (Gov. of Canada, 2018). This shows …

Today, we installed into the seaweed cabin thermal windows to save energy. As you recall, I quoted in an Interior Storm Window blog that windows, doors and skylights can lose 35% of energy in a home (Government of Canada, 2020). Initially, we installed some DIY …

A walk in a kelp forest is the opposite to what you see in a Westcoast rainforest. Recently, himself and I walked through a local forested vale, but could not see the tops of the trees as we looked up to the canopy. However, when …

Despite how most people imagine seaweeds as that long slimy stuff they must wade through on the beach, some weird seaweeds break away from the typical kelp-like structure of blade or leaf, holdfast or root and some form of stem or stipe.  These unique seaweeds …

On a recent trip to the wild pristine Westcoast of Vancouver Island to learn about local seaweeds, many of the participants expressed concern about iodine in seaweeds. Iodine is a mineral that our bodies cannot produce.  Our bodies use it to make thyroid hormone.  Thyroid …

B.C. indigenous seaweed recipes explores the consumption of seaweed for millenia by coastal inhabitants, and discusses the Kelp Highway Theory that predicts that indigenous people traversed Beringia, the Bering Strait land bridge, from Asia to North and South America through kelp forests (Braje, 2017). Essentially, …

Oysters have a symbiotic relationship with seaweeds. Some shellfish industries utilize this knowledge by cultivating the two in the same ecosystem. Furthermore, the market for shellfish grows every year with consumers wanting clean, high quality oysters that are sustainably grown; therefore, it is worth looking …

The COVID-19 pandemic thrusts the degrowth and environmental justice movements to the forefront as life in societies come to a standstill and conventional market economies plummet (CBC news, 2020). Spearheaded by public debate in France, Italy, Spain, North and Central America (Degrowth.org, 2019) and even …