Nature’s values in marine resource governance: an ethnographic case study of rockweed in Norway

Abstract

This article addresses the shortcomings in the governance of the Norwegian macroscopic brown algae Ascophyllum nodosum (rockweed) that appeared when approaching rockweed as a socio-ecologic object in the Vega archipelago on the Norwegian Helgeland coast. A common seaweed along the Norwegian coast, rockweed constitutes an important species in Norway’s ‘blue forests’. Historically, rockweed harvesting was an important source of income for the local coastal population in Norway. Although not comparable to the newer and expanding kelp industry, rockweed harvesting is still profitable along the coast. Despite revived attention from the seaweed industry, state management of rockweed in 2024 is conspicuously absent. Combined with the lack of scientific knowledge of the consequences of rockweed harvesting on the local coastal ecosystems, the responsibility for ensuring sustainable harvesting of rockweed lies with the industry itself. On Vega, however, where rockweed is a highly valued and contested coastal species with a high economic, ecologic, and cultural significance, rockweed harvesting was a conflicted issue. In approaching rockweed as a socio-ecologic object from ‘below’, the article identifies hegemonic structures and discourses in Norwegian marine governance, suggesting how a narrow definition of ‘value’ comes to matter—not only for rockweed—but for sustainable governance of all marine and coastal ecosystems. This article is also an important contribution to the burgeoning interdisciplinary research on nature’s values, power, and knowledge in environmental management.