Notes from the Rotary Meeting 12.30pmThursday November 6, 2025
President Olaf chaired the meeting.
- After lunch Olaf spoke of the new lunch menu and asked how everyone enjoyed the salmon meal. The response indicated the meal had been greatly enjoyed
- The Toonie Quest West weekly draw had a win today and the winner was happy to receive his sizable winnings.
Guest Speaker
Rotarian Olaf introduced the guest presenter Dr Christina Smeaton. Christina is a 2004 graduate of Grenfell Campus-MUN, where she completed a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science (Chemistry) and returned to Grenfell Campus as an Assistant Professor as a biogeochemist in August 2019. Her talk is entitled “Re-imagining Seaweed: From Tradition to its Potential Future Role in NL's Blue Economy.” This talk with visual presentation was on the historical uses and perceptions of seaweed in the province, the climate mitigation properties of seaweed in agriculture, and the potential role of the seaweed industry in shaping the blue economy of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Christina began by identifying the six different team members who are working on this project. This includes undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty members Dr Katherine Pendakis, Sociology and Dr Lakshman Gatagedara, Agriculture / Geophysics.
She began by looking at the strong history in the province of seaweed use by settlers and Indigenous people in agriculture. It was used as a fertilizer by adding fish waste and seaweed to the soil as a top dressing, compost or as a liquid-compost tea.
She continued by looking at the benefits of using seaweed in food production These include soil and plant benefits gained by adding nutrients, bioactive compounds and improving of soil structure Seaweed also gives potential climate benefits as growing seaweed uptakes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turns it into solid carbon plus the breakdown of seaweed in soils provides slow-release of nitrogen and reduces nitrogen based greenhouse gas.
Christina continued by explaining what is meant by Blue Economy probably a new term for many people. Blue economy is the use of oceans, seas and coastal resources to drive economic growth while ensuring environmental health and social equity. Thus, growing a sustainable blue economy requires a strategy of job creation for costal communities ensuring the ocean remains healthy.
Dr Smeaton looked at the main research question which was ‘Can we use seaweed as a fertilizer to reduce gas emissions from soils?’ The approach involves lab and field experiments as well as archival research.
The next part of her talk dealt with some archival research on the use of seaweed in the past and how from the MUN Digital Archives seaweed reporting has varied over the years.
Continuing from this she looked at the provincial history of the seaweed industry which was first documented in 1933. During WW11 there was an agar scarcity resulting in Irish Moss being harvested and exported to the US. It was between 1969 – 1975 harvested on the Port au Port Peninsula and exported to Denmark. However, with the collapse of the Cod Fishery the seaweed industry ended.
Since 2010 until today the seaweed industry is growing with several Seaweed based businesses in existence. There are several challenges for these businesses, but this industry is a natural economic and cultural resource in the province.
Several questions were asked of Christina before she was thanked by Olaf for this most interesting and informative presentation.
