Seaweeds are a diverse group of large marine macroalgae that are as important to our nearshore coastal marine world as land plants are to our terrestrial world. Today seaweeds are a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide, providing food, fertilizers, nutritional supplementation, and valuable phycocolloid extracts including agar, carrageenan, and alginate. Although wild harvest supports a significant portion of seaweed industry, there is an ever increasing amount of seaweed production from aquaculture, principally in Asia and South America (Chile) (Redmond et al, 2014). Seaweed aquaculture makes up a significant portion of organisms cultured worldwide (~19 million metric tons) with a value of ~US $5.65 billion (FAO, 2012). Hence the initiative of the MRC is to set-up a research programme to investigate the potential of developing an economically, technically and environmentally viable seaweed industry in Mauritius and Rodrigues. The National relevance of this programme is emphasized by section 195 of the Government Programme 2010-2015 which states that ‘the Cultivation of Seaweed with a view to developing an Industry based on Value-added transformation of seaweed for human consumption, cosmetic application, medical and pharmaceutical research’ will be conducted.