“First Nations communities have a connection and an obligation to Country and culture that goes beyond the economic sustainability of a single project,” explains Moonrise Seaweed Co. co-founder and proud Narungga man, Brad Darkson.
“You're always going to have that connection to that place when you're part of that community. You’re thinking about the next 500 years, you're not thinking about the next five years in your business plan. You're thinking about what you're going to leave behind.”
Brad and his partner and co-founder, Chloe, are forging new paths to regeneratively farm native seaweeds using First Nations knowledge systems from their base on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia.
“We are both ocean people and we decided we would dedicate our life to working in, or on, the ocean,” Brad explains. “We wanted to do something that honoured those connections to the ocean, that has some positive social outcomes and real economic and environmental impacts for local communities and that’s when we decided upon farming seaweed.”
Despite seaweed being a billion-dollar industry globally, Brad and Chloe were surprised to learn the seaweed industry was non-existent in Australia.
“We looked for examples of seaweed farming but there were none here,” Brad explains.
As they began developing the blueprint for their project, Brad and Chloe were determined not to do ‘business as usual’, and instead centred
the commitment to “community and Country, first and foremost.”
“We did not want to be one of those projects that rise and fall and leave communities behind,” Brad says.
“For First Nations communities across the world, in Aotearoa, Canada, the US, the Pacific, it's all the same stories. Communities having to fight for their water rights or constantly having to fend off business interests that are circling and looking for ways to extract profit without having a commitment to local communities in any meaningful way.
“We've always been really connected with Elders in our community and other people in the First Nations community here, who are supportive of the work that we do, and want to either be a part of it or advise on it and see where we can go.”
Moonrise Seaweed Co.’s goal is to research and build seaweed infrastructure that can filter water and local waterways such as estuaries leading out into the ocean from polluted rivers, or directly filtering water from the coastline.
“We want to build these systems so we can develop practices and protocols for growing seaweed in tanks that can be shared with local communities,” Brad says.
Sharing knowledge is key to the not-for-profit’s ethos, with a view to empowering other communities across the country.
“We’re not trying to monopolise anything or plonk down our own farms all the way around the coastline,” Brad says. “We want to enable other small operators and people who are interested in earning a living from caring for Country and practicing culture to benefit too.”
With a $40,000 loan from The Wyatt Trust’s Catalytic Local Investment Fund (CLIF) with a three and a half-year repayment term, Moonrise Seaweed Co. has been able to continue its work which includes research with Flinders University, exploring market development opportunities and participation in a marine bioproducts cooperative research group.
“The CLIF investment really helped bridge a funding gap that allowed us to stay on top of our project,” Brad says.
“We were very grateful for the support, because the timelines were so long and it was taking much longer than anticipated to get everything off the ground. It’s been very slow dealing with bureaucracy in what is a brand new industry in Australia.
Moonrise Seaweed Co.’s first seaweed harvest was in October 2025, six years after the business was registered.
“It’s been a slog, to be honest,” Brad says. “And it’s impossible to overstate the importance of funding sources like philanthropic funding that don’t come with strings attached, but just allow you to continue the work.
“We wouldn't have been able to do it without the support of organisations like World Wildlife Fund, Sustainable Table and the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation that provided crucial project-based funding. Now Wyatt with a low-interest loan, having that kind of bridging finance to get to where we are, to do the research required, has been critical.”
Though the journey to pioneer the industry in Australia has been challenging, Brad says some of the most rewarding moments have been the
deep connections with community that have the potential to endure for generations.
“It’s so important for First Nations communities to be leading enterprises, leading environmental work, leading remediation, and not
being brought into a project as an add-on,” Brad explains.
“Regardless of how well-meaning people are, unless you're spending time building relationships and trust with local communities and co-designing your project from the very beginning, there is always going to be a power imbalance.
“If we can co-design in a way that enables First Nations communities to practice culture sustainably, in a way they can earn a living doing that, you're going to see positive outcomes.”
Learn more about Moonrise Seaweed Co. here.
Image: Moonrise Seaweed Co. owners and directors Brad and Chloe Darkson with Ecklonia radiata seaweed (Golden Kelp). Photo courtesy Heidi Who.
