Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les 

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent 

To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean says de­spite spend­ing over a quar­ter mil­lion dol­lars last year to fight sar­gas­sum, the cri­sis is on­ly get­ting worse.

And he is now call­ing on the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to step in, as his as­so­ci­a­tion joins a mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) part­ner­ship to com­bat the prob­lem.

MacLean says the sea­weed is not just an eye­sore but is dri­ving vis­i­tors away, nar­row­ing beach­es and drain­ing busi­ness own­ers who are forced to spend hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars to keep shore­lines clean. He is ask­ing for greater part­ner­ship and faster in­ter­ven­tion be­fore To­ba­go’s tourism rep­u­ta­tion is dam­aged be­yond re­pair.

He said yes­ter­day that he was grate­ful for the UNDP as­sis­tance through US$25 mil­lion in fund­ing via Japan, which will pro­vide some ease to af­fect­ed coun­tries.

“Spey­side, To­ba­go, to be ex­act, is where part of that fund­ing will be spent, which is where we are lo­cat­ed. Part of that is 1,000 me­tres of sar­gas­sum boom. It is an alu­mini­um barge with a con­vey­or belt, bas­kets to put it (col­lect­ed sea­weed) in­to trucks to of­fload the bas­kets, to dump the stuff. And again, a main­te­nance pro­gramme to keep all the equip­ment run­ning,” MacLean ex­plained.

The fund­ing forms part of a broad­er re­gion­al ini­tia­tive that aims to help is­land states im­prove their ca­pac­i­ty to man­age the grow­ing sar­gas­sum threat.

The mats of sea­weed drift­ing in from the At­lantic are no longer con­sid­ered sea­son­al. It is re­port­ed that this event now forms part of a year-round phe­nom­e­non, dri­ven by cli­mate change, warm­ing seas and shifts in ocean cur­rents.

But MacLean said the UNDP sup­port will not be enough un­less it is backed by a co-or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al plan. Stake­hold­ers in tourism have been rais­ing the alarm for years, he said, but con­tin­ue to feel side­lined. The as­so­ci­a­tion be­lieves a cen­tralised ac­tion plan across gov­ern­ment, the pri­vate sec­tor and com­mu­ni­ties is need­ed, if To­ba­go is to man­age what is now con­sid­ered both an eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal emer­gency.

While ho­tels may be on the front­lines of the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence, MacLean said the im­pact is be­ing felt far be­yond the tourism in­dus­try.

He said, “What we’re see­ing is that the sand on the beach is ac­tu­al­ly dis­ap­pear­ing be­cause of the sar­gas­sum. So, we’re los­ing the beach—phys­i­cal­ly los­ing it. If you com­pare what the beach looked like five years ago to now, it’s night and day.”

MacLean said the as­so­ci­a­tion is hop­ing to work with the THA and the cen­tral gov­ern­ment but warned time was run­ning out. He al­so raised con­cerns about pro­pos­als to re­pur­pose the sea­weed for agri­cul­ture.

He ref­er­enced stud­ies that warned against us­ing sar­gas­sum as fer­tilis­er be­cause of its po­ten­tial to ab­sorb harm­ful sub­stances like ar­senic and cad­mi­um from pol­lut­ed wa­ters. He said if not prop­er­ly treat­ed, the sea­weed could con­t­a­m­i­nate crops and pose health risks to con­sumers.

Al­so con­tact­ed, All To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Cur­tis Dou­glas said the sea­weed was dam­ag­ing ves­sels and af­fect­ing the is­land’s food sup­ply.

“So, it dam­ages your fish­ing equip­ment and it’s very dif­fi­cult to catch fish around be­cause some­times your lines and oth­er stuff picks up with the feed so you can’t get as much [fish] as you would like to earn. It lessens down on your prof­it when the day come. It’s high risk when it (sar­gas­sum sea­weed) comes in large por­tions like this,” Dou­glas said.

The is­sue is not lim­it­ed to shore­lines, as Dou­glas ex­plained float­ing mats of sar­gas­sum can clog pro­pellers, over­heat en­gines and force fish­er­men to spend more time and fu­el avoid­ing dense patch­es in open wa­ter.

To­ba­go’s fish­er­folk have been call­ing for ad­di­tion­al equip­ment and a more con­sis­tent clean-up and dis­pos­al strat­e­gy.

Guardian Me­dia al­so not­ed that some com­mu­ni­ties have been stock­pil­ing the col­lect­ed sar­gas­sum but are un­sure about how to safe­ly dis­pose of it, or whether it can be re­pur­posed.