Barbados is grappling with an alarming surge of sargassum seaweed along its eastern coast, posing significant challenges to its vital tourism and fishing industries.
"These sargassum come from the further east coast of North America, then come all the way down to the Caribbean. We have been dealing with this problem for a couple of years now," said resort staff member Grantley.
Typically, sargassum begins to accumulate on beaches in early January. However, over the past two years, it has been appearing as early as November, sometimes piling up to four to five meters thick within just three days.
International research in recent years indicates that the overgrowth of seaweed is driven by global warming and the discharge of industrial wastewater into the sea. Increased levels of nitrogen and phosphorus accelerate the reproduction and spread of sargassum, leading to depleted oxygen levels in seawater and mass fish deaths.
"The sargassum seaweed is an increasing threat to our fishing industry. They are being threatened obviously in the context of their livelihood. So, these are issues that we have had to battle with," said Kerrie Drurard Symmonds, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados.
At a 360-meter-long tourism beach, bulldozers are employed for four hours each day to clear the sargassum before the arrival of tourists.
"It started to give out a bad odor. People are not really happy being in the sea until it takes a while for the workers to clean up the beach," said Wiend, a driver at a local tourism company.
Throughout Barbados' entire east coast, at least 500 forklifts are deployed every morning to manage the cleanup operations.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
