Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Over a pe­ri­od of 36 hours, To­ba­go’s most pop­u­lar west­ern beach­es were blan­ket­ed by un­usu­al­ly large vol­umes of sar­gas­sum sea­weed, and one ma­rine spe­cial­ist is warn­ing that such events could be­come the new nor­mal due to shift­ing cli­mate pat­terns.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Lam­beau Beach yes­ter­day, thick waves of sar­gas­sum con­tin­ued to wash ashore. De­spite ear­li­er cleanup op­er­a­tions at Store Bay and Swal­lows, the shore­line was again cov­ered in sea­weed just hours af­ter be­ing cleared.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) con­firmed that clean-up ef­forts be­gan “with­in hours” of the first re­ports out of Crown Point. Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine shared im­ages of on­go­ing work at Store Bay, Pi­geon Point, and Swal­lows Beach.

“We have been clean­ing and clear­ing the sar­gas­sum since yes­ter­day, and we will con­tin­ue as long as it is on our beach­es,” Au­gus­tine said.

He added that the Di­vi­sion of Food Se­cu­ri­ty has been tasked with man­ag­ing more in­ten­sive clean-up ef­forts, stretch­ing from Mag­dale­na to Lam­beau and Spey­side.

“So far, we’ve used ex­ist­ing staff and URP work­ers, so no ex­tra ex­pen­di­ture has been in­curred,” he stat­ed. “If that changes, I will no­ti­fy the pub­lic.”

He al­so as­sured that all beach­es will re­main open dur­ing the clean-up process.

How­ev­er, ma­rine spe­cial­ist Alvin Dou­glas, who op­er­ates along To­ba­go’s west­ern coast, de­scribed the scale of this sar­gas­sum in­flux as un­prece­dent­ed.

“I’ve nev­er seen that vol­ume of sar­gas­sum reach­ing this side of the is­land,” he told Guardian Me­dia. “Usu­al­ly, the wind push­es it west­ward, but around this time of year, the wind shifts — and this time, it brought it back.”

Dou­glas not­ed that while wind changes dur­ing the rainy sea­son aren’t new, re­cent pat­terns are be­com­ing more in­tense and un­pre­dictable.

“It’s mul­ti­ply­ing,” he said. “We’re used to see­ing some sar­gas­sum, but now we’re see­ing much more — and for longer pe­ri­ods.”

While Dou­glas em­pha­sized there’s no need to pan­ic, he warned that To­ba­go must be­gin prepar­ing for more fre­quent and se­vere coastal im­pacts tied to cli­mate change.

“Cli­mate change is re­al,” he stressed. “This is just one sign of how se­vere it’s get­ting. Every­thing is be­com­ing more un­pre­dictable. We must pro­tect our en­vi­ron­ment now more than ever.”

Dou­glas called for a tran­si­tion from re­ac­tive clean-up ef­forts to proac­tive, long-term plan­ning.

“What’s dif­fer­ent this time is the scale,” he said. “Mas­sive sar­gas­sum land­ings could be­come more fre­quent. We need to be ready.”

In May, To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean de­scribed the sar­gas­sum in­va­sion as an eco­nom­ic night­mare for the tourism sec­tor.

He re­vealed that he spent over a quar­ter-mil­lion dol­lars last year clear­ing sar­gas­sum from the beach­front at his prop­er­ty, Blue Wa­ters Inn.

MacLean said equip­ment is be­ing shipped to To­ba­go through a US$25 mil­lion UNDP-fund­ed project by the Gov­ern­ment of Japan. The gear in­cludes 1,000 me­tres of sar­gas­sum boom, an alu­mini­um barge with a con­vey­or belt, and spe­cialised bas­kets for truck load­ing.

Still, MacLean stressed that even with in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port, the sea­weed cri­sis re­quires a na­tion­al re­sponse.

He urged the THA and Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment to de­vel­op a co­or­di­nat­ed, long-term strat­e­gy for clean-up and safe dis­pos­al. He al­so cau­tioned against the un­reg­u­lat­ed use of sar­gas­sum as fer­tilis­er, not­ing it may con­tain tox­ic heavy met­als like ar­senic and cad­mi­um.