The seaweed resources of Chile over the period 2006–2016: moving from gatherers to cultivators

Abstract

Abstract Chile, located in the southeastern Pacific, possess a high richness of seaweed species, some of which have been traditionally extracted from natural beds for the production of hydrocolloids (e.g. agar, carrageenan and alginates), but still a high proportion of the biomass is being exported as dried material to processors in Asia and Europe. During the period 2006–2016, this tendency has been maintained, but has also started to show signs of changing towards a more sustainable, localized seaweed industry as new actions by the Chilean government provided subsidies to seaweed farming activities and also to investments in local valorization of the resources. This “sea change” has been further supported by an increase in the number of localized scientific and technical studies related to Chilean seaweed resources which has prepared the foundation required in order to move to more advanced stages of local seaweed farming and development of local processing.