Harvesting mineral-rich seaweed on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, Attibari Lemkhanter worries that the plant known locally as “red gold” is becoming increasingly scarce.

“There are more and more divers and less and less red seaweed,” Lemkhanter sighed as he worked on a beach in El Jadida, about 100 kms southwest of Casablanca.

Collected during three months of summer on a narrow stretch of coastline, the red seaweed is used to produce “agar-agar” — a natural gelling agent popular with cooks and professional chefs, and also used in pharmacology and cosmetics.

An alternative to animal-based thickening agents, agar-agar has long been used in Asian cuisine but has won over more and more in the West and other parts of the world.

Not only is it a good alternative to animal-sourced gelatins for vegetarians and religious groups that ban pork, it also gels at higher temperatures — hence quicker — than traditional animal-based agents.

Morocco has long been a key exporter and topped the global producers’ list until 2006, when it was overtaken by China and Chile.

Over-harvesting raised fears of long-term damage and in recent years Moroccan authorities have set prices and quotas to protect the resource.

But even that may not have been enough, Lemkhanter said.

“In the 1990s and the 2000s, we used to collect as much as 500 kilos of red algae a day. But the plant is disappearing,” said the man in his 50s.

As holidaymakers made the most of the late summer sunshine in El Jadida, Lemkhanter slipped on his old plastic shoes and a patched-up outfit to get down to work. The rocky coastline of El Jadida province lies at the heart of the harvest. There are no reliable figures for how many people make their living from the seaweed but hundreds, if not thousands, take part in the harvest every year.

It can be dangerous work, especially for the many divers using obsolete equipment to reach depths of between 20 and 25 meters.

“Many people come to El Jadida thinking it’s an El Dorado. It’s not unusual for us to have inexperienced youths drown,” Lemkhanter said.