Isle Martin Seaweed Festival Postponed

Along with many other events, Scotland’s first Seaweed Festival, due to take place this September 5-6^th as part of the Year of Coasts and Waters 2020 programme has been postponed due to the Coronavirus restrictions.

Festival Curator, artist Julia Barton said “In the light of the Coronavirus situation, we have decided that sadly, there is no alternative but to put back the Isle Martin Seaweed Festival to ensure the safety of our community during this time”.

The Isle Martin Seaweed Festival was selected to be supported by the Year of Coasts and Waters 2020 events fund, managed by EventScotland. The Seaweed Festival was due to be part of the official programme for the year and was being part-financed by the Highland & Moray FLAG European & Maritime Fisheries Fund Programme and Scottish Government. It was also receiving funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Scottish Natural Heritage through the Coigach and Assynt Living Landscape Partnership and the Ullapool Harbour Trust. 

Regarding when the Festival will now run, Julia explains “We’re working with VisitScotland and our funders to review all options and will be announcing a new date for the Festival as soon as we can”.

Julia and the Isle Martin Seaweed Festival Working Group have not given up on celebrating seaweed entirely this year however, with two exciting activities still in the pipeline. The first is involvement in the Marine Conservation Society’s Big Seaweed Search project to map the seaweed beds around the whole of the UK coastline. Two beaches on Isle Martin have been selected for inclusion in the survey, which is expected to take place later in the year. 

The second activity is a fascinating kelp experiment by local archaeologist Cathy Dagg who, as part of her academic research into the history of kelping will be conducting experiments into how the kelping industry operated in the late 18^th and 19th centuries. It is believed to be the first time such a series of planned experiments have been undertaken in this historic activity that had such an impact on human lives on Scotland’s West Coast.