Caribbean officials ponder regional response to seaweed influx.
| Autor | Scruggs, Gregory |
The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, Danny, fizzled this week into even less than a tropical storm. While that development boded well for the Caribbean, which forecasters have predicted will experience a mild hurricane season, a different environmental phenomenon has been affecting the region's economy for months. Sargassum, pungent seaweed from the North Atlantic, continues to wash up on shorelines throughout the Caribbean basin. The thick algae make beach access difficult and have negatively impacted the tourism sector. However, marine scientists argue that sargassum provides turtle habitats and has other ecosystem benefits and agricultural uses.
The last major sargassum invasion occurred in 2011, but experts concur that this year's trend is much more severe, having clogged beaches from Barbados to Belize. "This has been the worst year we've seen. We need to have a regional effort because this unsightly seaweed could end up affecting the image of the Caribbean," said Christopher James, chair of the Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association. On Aug. 3, the Tobago House of Assembly declared the sargassum invasion a "natural disaster."
While sargassum can be found in every ocean but the Arctic, the largest concentration is generally in the North Atlantic. Typically, lower ocean temperatures in the cooler months of the year check the seaweed's growth and confine it to the 2 million sq mile Sargasso Sea, named for the algae. Increasingly warm ocean temperatures and high nutrient flows from the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers have encouraged equatorial growth of sargassum, resulting in an exceptional bloom that has spilled into the Atlantic along the Caribbean archipelago and into the Caribbean Sea.
Regional response
For most countries along the Caribbean basin, tourism is the main economic driver. The immediate response to the influx of sargassum has thus been alarm, with local officials seeking to remove sargassum as quickly as possible. While there are no regionwide studies of canceled or shortened vacations on account of sargassum, anecdotal reports abound of disappointed holidaymakers. Images of beaches stacked high with sargassum have circulated widely on social media, and online forums receive constant queries and regular updates about affected beaches.
In some locations, sargassum has piled up to 10 ft high, which has physically obstructed access to beaches. The seaweed also has an odor akin to rotten eggs, which can make any...
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