Ms Maria Graham:

Yes. We have done quite a bit of work on wild seaweed, which is the traditional harvesting of seaweed. Currently we have applications coming in, including for commercial harvesting of wild seaweed under the Foreshore Acts. We have had to do quite an amount of work to deal with that wider commercial issue to examine the rights to harvest.

We have done considerable work with both the Office of the Attorney General and the Property Registration Authority to determine that people have traditional rights associated with that.

Then it is a question of commercial activities. There are either pre-existing rights and they will have to engage with people who have those rights if they wish to go to a commercial level of activity. Our framework allows those activities to be consented. We deal with the planning framework which will move into the new planning Bill, however, we are not in the promotional area. We do not have responsibility for that; our role is to provide a planning framework in the marine area to ensure that for all sectors in which the Government wants to engage, from energy to things such as seaweed, a consent regime is in place which is efficient in order to facilitate that and which considers all appropriate dimensions namely social, environmental and economic. That is why the marine spatial plan will mention all the different aspects of the activity in the area.