The Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS), Dr Di­da­cus Jules has re­it­er­at­ed the need for a col­lec­tive ap­proach to­wards deal­ing with the sar­gas­sum sit­u­a­tion in the Caribbean.

Ad­dress­ing the open­ing of the two-day Sec­ond Eu­ro­pean Union-Caribbean Glob­al Gate­way con­fer­ence on Sar­gas­sum on Tues­day (Oc­to­ber 1, 2024), Dr Jules said there have been too many con­fer­ences and that now is the time for ac­tion.

“We are here be­cause sar­gas­sum—as we know, a prob­lem that has be­set our shores for over a decade—de­mands our col­lec­tive ac­tion,” Dr Jules told the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the con­fer­ence that is be­ing held un­der the theme ‘Turn­ing the Tide: Sus­tain­able Prac­tices and Eco­nom­ic Op­por­tu­ni­ties for Sar­gas­sum in the Caribbean Basin’.

“It threat­ens our coastal com­mu­ni­ties, un­der­mines pub­lic health and places enor­mous pres­sure on our gov­ern­ment’s re­sources. Yet it is al­so more than a threat. It is a call to ac­tion, an op­por­tu­ni­ty to shift from cri­sis man­age­ment to in­no­va­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion. It is an op­por­tu­ni­ty that will im­pact every coun­try in the Caribbean Basin, and that is why we must act de­ci­sive­ly,” he said.

Dr Jules told the con­fer­ence, which is an ini­tia­tive un­der Glob­al Gate­way, the Eu­ro­pean Union’s strat­e­gy to boost in­vest­ments that gen­er­ate smart, clean and se­cure val­ue chains across the world, that the re­al suc­cess of this event will be mea­sured not by the con­ver­sa­tions held, but by the ac­tions tak­en.

“So, as we be­gin this im­por­tant di­a­logue, I chal­lenge each of us to fo­cus on ac­tion. We must leave here, not just with ideas and dis­cus­sions,” he said, “but with con­crete plans and com­mit­ments. Let us com­mit to build­ing part­ner­ships that can bring to­geth­er gov­ern­ment, in­dus­try, acad­e­mia and lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties.”

The OECS Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al told the del­e­gates that sar­gas­sum is not just a nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non, but a re­cur­ring one, ex­ac­er­bat­ed by glob­al en­vi­ron­men­tal shifts.

“We have seen it af­fect­ing our fish­ing in­dus­tries, dis­rupt tourism and stretch our pub­lic ser­vices thin as we go to clean up our beach­es,” he not­ed. “The sheer scale of the prob­lem, hun­dreds of thou­sands of tons of sea­weed wash­ing ashore an­nu­al­ly is stag­ger­ing, but to­day, we re­solve to see it dif­fer­ent­ly.”

“What if, as has been said, we can turn the tide on sar­gas­sum and con­vert it in­to an as­set? This is not a far-off dream. It is with­in our grasp,” he as­sert­ed. “In fact, some of our mem­ber states part­ners and in­no­va­tors have al­ready been ex­plor­ing how to trans­form sar­gas­sum in­to prod­ucts that can gen­er­ate rev­enue and cre­ate jobs.”

Dr Jules said that these ini­tia­tives point to the way for­ward, but there is need to ac­cel­er­ate and ex­pand these ef­forts.

“Our task here to­day is to en­sure that we move be­yond iso­lat­ed projects and de­vel­op a co­or­di­nat­ed, scal­able and sus­tain­able re­sponse. Our chal­lenge is to trans­form the nar­ra­tive of sar­gas­sum from one of bur­den to one of op­por­tu­ni­ty, and this trans­for­ma­tion re­quires a bold, three-pronged ap­proach,” he said.

“First, we must in­vest in re­search and de­vel­op­ment. While the eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial of Sar­gas­sum is re­al,” he ob­served, “there’s still much that we need to un­der­stand about how to har­ness it safe­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly, from its vari­able chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion to its heavy met­al con­tent, we need to en­sure that sar­gas­sum can be val­orised in a way that pro­tects both the en­vi­ron­ment and hu­man health.”

Dr Jules re­port­ed that re­search in­sti­tu­tions, both with­in the re­gion and be­yond, are al­ready ex­plor­ing the po­ten­tial of sar­gas­sum as a re­source for bio­fu­els, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, fer­tilis­ers and even build­ing ma­te­ri­als, but more in­vest­ment is need­ed to bring these so­lu­tions to scale.

“This con­fer­ence will help us to con­nect those dots be­tween in­no­va­tors and in­vestors, and I urge us to com­mit to ex­pand­ing these net­works,” he said, adding there al­so is a need for an en­abling pol­i­cy en­vi­ron­ment.

“Our gov­ern­ments have al­ready made strides in de­vel­op­ing na­tion­al strate­gies to ad­dress sar­gas­sum, but we must now take this fur­ther to­geth­er,” he urged. “We there­fore need re­gion­al poli­cies that sup­port the es­tab­lish­ment of a sus­tain­able sar­gas­sum in­dus­try.”

“This means cre­at­ing frame­works that en­cour­age pub­lic pri­vate part­ner­ships, in­cen­tivise in­vest­ment in pro­cess­ing tech­nolo­gies and stream­line the reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments for sar­gas­sum-based prod­ucts.”

Dr Jules said that the re­gion can and should be­come a glob­al leader in sar­gas­sum, “but we will on­ly achieve this by align­ing our poli­cies with our am­bi­tions.”

He told the con­fer­ence that there is need for re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion as sar­gas­sum knows no bound­aries, and nei­ther should be the re­sponse.

“It was the Amer­i­can po­et Robert Frost who was suit­ed in his po­em mend­ing fences, and I quote, ‘good neigh­bours make good fences’.  But the Caribbean Sea that we share has no fences, and na­ture makes a fic­tion of our mar­itime bound­aries. The in­flux­es we face re­quire not on­ly na­tion­al ef­forts, but a co­or­di­nat­ed re­gion­al strat­e­gy,” Dr Jules stat­ed.

“We need to work to­geth­er on fore­cast­ing, col­lec­tion, stor­age and pro­cess­ing. This is not just a mat­ter of ef­fi­cien­cy. It is al­so a mat­ter of fair­ness. In our case, strong co­op­er­a­tion makes good neigh­bours. Some coun­tries are more se­vere­ly im­pact­ed than oth­ers, and the bur­den of deal­ing with sar­gas­sum should not fall dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly on any one state.”

“By shar­ing re­sources, knowl­edge and tech­nol­o­gy, we can en­sure that all coun­tries in the Caribbean Basin are equipped to han­dle the chal­lenge. In this re­gard, the Eu­ro­pean Union’s Glob­al Gate­way Ini­tia­tive is a cru­cial part­ner.”

Dr Jules said that the EU has demon­strat­ed a deep com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the re­gion, not just through fund­ing, but through col­lab­o­ra­tion and shared learn­ing.

“This con­fer­ence is a tes­ta­ment to this,” he ac­knowl­edged, “and it is my hope that we will leave here with even stronger ties be­tween the Caribbean and the EU in our joint ef­forts to tack­le this is­sue. But make no mis­take, this is not just a mat­ter of gov­ern­ments and in­sti­tu­tions. The pri­vate sec­tor has a role, key role to play.”

He said many of those present here rep­re­sent in­dus­tries that are al­ready ex­per­i­ment­ing with in­no­v­a­tive us­es for sar­gas­sum, from cos­met­ics to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals to en­er­gy pro­duc­tion and agri­cul­ture.

“Your cre­ativ­i­ty, your risk tak­ing, and your in­vest­ment are what will ul­ti­mate­ly dri­ve the suc­cess of this en­deav­our,” Dr Jules said, adding: “I urge you to see your­selves as part of a larg­er ecosys­tem, one where your suc­cess con­tributes not on­ly to your own bot­tom line, but to the re­silience and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of our en­tire re­gion.”

“We are al­so mind­ful of the com­mu­ni­ties that bear the brunt of sar­gas­sum in­flux­es, fish­er­men, coastal busi­ness­es, lo­cal res­i­dents have all been im­pact­ed,” he point­ed out. “As we de­vel­op so­lu­tions, we must en­sure that they are in­clu­sive, tak­ing in­to ac­count the needs and the voic­es of those most af­fect­ed.”

He added: “This is not just about cre­at­ing high tech so­lu­tions in labs; it is about build­ing re­silient com­mu­ni­ties and economies from the ground up. The time for ac­tion is now.”

The OECS Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al said over the next two days, the con­fer­ence will ex­plore a range of so­lu­tions, from pol­i­cy frame­works and in­vest­ment strate­gies to sci­en­tif­ic in­no­va­tions and busi­ness mod­els, hear­ing al­so from ex­perts, gov­ern­ment lead­ers, in­dus­try pi­o­neers, who are al­ready mak­ing strides in this field.

He urged con­fer­ence del­e­gates: “Let us com­mit to find­ing so­lu­tions that are in­no­v­a­tive, scal­able and sus­tain­able, and let us com­mit to act­ing now, be­cause the fu­ture of our re­gion de­pends on it.” —ST. GEORGE’s, Grena­da (CMC)