It is early springtime, which means prime harvest season. Zoe is standing with a big orange bucket and a knife on a small island just North of the arctic circle, 33 nautical miles from the Norwegian mainland. She is isolated, yet surrounded by rich ecosystems and aquatic forests. As the tide begins to reach its lowest point, the abundance of sea life begins to reveal itself.

Carefully, Zoe picks up a handful of long spaghetti-like sea vegetables – Himanthalia elongata– and examines their brown and green colour and robust texture. She makes a clean cut leaving the holdfast (seaweed ‘root’) and stipe (or stalk) intact. Sustainably harvesting small quantities of seaweed by hand like this allows them to grow back next year. Zoe fills up her bucket before moving to a different harvest spot.

Zoe has dedicated the last decade of her life to the humble seaweed, founding Northern Company in 2013, which harvests various species of wild seaweed and kelp from around the Træna archipelago in Norway.

When asked how she first came to be involved with seaweed, Zoe answered that at the time “I didn’t know so much about what existed underneath the surface of the water and came to think about this kelp forest almost like a hidden treasure”. Zoe believes that the more we understand about life under the sea, the more inclined we are to care for and protect it. “What keeps us sustainable”, Zoe says, “is that we, metaphorically speaking, touch each piece of seaweed, kiss it and put it in a bag”. What we can see and touch becomes something we can more easily contemplate, arousing curiosity. And this curiosity leads to solutions.

Rich in flavour and nutrients, Zoe hopes that the seaweed that grows so abundantly along Norway’s coast will become a staple in Norwegian households. She adds that “food is something we are all deeply connected to”. With more people interested in food and its impact, this also becomes a vital space to talk about sustainability more generally – both for humans and for the planet.