KING ISLAND KELP
Islanders turn a rubbery resource thrown up by high tides into an extra income source.
GROWING TO ABOUT 6m in length, bull kelp is a robust, low-lying species found on the GSR around south-eastern Australia. It contains the highest level of alginates of any Australian seaweed – alginates are used as an additive to a vast range of products, from fruit drinks, ice cream, cosmetics and dyes to pharmaceuticals and bandages. And it can be put to a myriad of other uses, for example as a feed in aquaculture, as a fertiliser and soil conditioner to replenish depleted soils, and as a dietary supplement.
On King Island, at the western entrance to Bass Strait, bull kelp provides the basis for a primary industry. Self-employed kelp harvesters hand-collect the valuable seaweed that washes up on the island’s rocky shore (see AG 51). These ‘kelpies’, as they’re known locally, clamber over the slippery rocks tying nylon rope to the kelp’s holdfasts, before winching the plants onto trucks and trailers weathered by the salty air.
Jason Russell has lived on King Island for most of his life, but only became a kelpie late in 2016, making the switch from unloading southern rock lobsters from commercial fishing vessels when the price of kelp jumped from $300 to $700 a tonne. “A lot of kelpies also keep their main job, so they can still get their weekly wage and then go out kelping when the seas are up,” Jason says.
According to Jason, on a good day he can collect a tonne of kelp, which makes the industry a potentially lucrative option for locals. “The factory will take as much as you can give them,” he says. “They just can’t seem to get enough.” And neither, it seems, can King Island’s cattle, which arrive on the windswept beaches at sunrise to feast on the rubbery brown fronds washed up by the previous night’s tides.