KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

A Na­tion­al Sar­gas­sum Man­age­ment Pol­i­cy is cur­rent­ly be­ing de­vel­oped by the Na­tion­al Sar­gas­sum Task Force (NSTF), which was ap­point­ed to deal with the threats of the gulfweed in Ju­ly 2024.

In a joint ar­ti­cle on the con­tin­u­ous is­sue, Deputy di­rec­tor of Re­search at the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA) Dr Ra­han­na Ju­man and com­mit­tee mem­ber Aquat­ic Ecol­o­gist Dr Ryan S Mo­hammed said the pol­i­cy would seek to en­cour­age mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion among key stake­hold­ers at all lev­els and through­out the process, from ear­ly warn­ing to pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness.

Large mounds of sar­gas­sum are once again cov­er­ing T&T’s shores af­fect­ing the en­joy­ment of its beach­es and im­pact­ing the coun­try’s tur­tle nest­ing sea­son.

From Matu­ra to Moru­ga to Spey­side in To­ba­go, “gold­en tides” are wash­ing ashore.

The NSTG said these un­prece­dent­ed, mas­sive, episod­ic in­flux­es of float­ing sar­gas­sum in­un­dat­ing T&T’s coast­lines were first ob­served in 2011.

Since then, the sea­weed has had sig­nif­i­cant neg­a­tive im­pacts, par­tic­u­lar­ly on coastal com­mu­ni­ties and liveli­hoods, pub­lic health, tourism, tur­tle nest­ing and fish­eries.

“Re­searchers sug­gest these blooms are fu­elled by a com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors, in­clud­ing al­tered ocean cur­rents, warm­ing ocean tem­per­a­tures as­so­ci­at­ed with cli­mate change, and in­creased nu­tri­ent avail­abil­i­ty,” Ju­man and Mo­hammed joint­ly said.

“These is­sues, if left unchecked, are like­ly to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing sig­nif­i­cant sar­gas­sum events in­to the fu­ture ac­cord­ing the 2021 UN En­vi­ron­ment Pro­gramme re­port.”

Ac­cord­ing to a re­cent CNN re­port, Uni­ver­si­ty of South Flori­da Re­search As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sor Bri­an Barnes re­vealed that this year is al­ready a record for the amount of Sar­gas­sum in the cen­tral At­lantic Ocean.

“What we ob­served in April was far and away greater than any­thing the satel­lites have record­ed over the last 25 years and pre­sum­ably ever as far as what would be ex­pect­ed,” Barnes said.

Barnes is part of the small team us­ing satel­lites to mon­i­tor sar­gas­sum. USF’s Col­lege of Ma­rine Sci­ence Op­ti­cal Oceanog­ra­phy Lab­o­ra­to­ry main­tains the Sar­gas­sum Watch Sys­tem, an out­look on cur­rent and fu­ture sea­weed blooms in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf, us­ing a suite of satel­lite da­ta from NASA, NOAA and pri­vate satel­lites.

The an­nu­al mass in­flux­es of sar­gas­sum in­to the Caribbean Sea though un­pre­dictable in vol­ume and tra­jec­to­ry, are now be­ing con­sid­ered as the ‘new nor­mal’, re­quir­ing sus­tain­able man­age­ment re­spons­es and long-term adap­ta­tion.

T&T is among five Caribbean coun­tries par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Japan­ese fund­ed re­gion­al project ex­e­cut­ed by the UNDP which aims to en­hance na­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty for the man­age­ment of sar­gas­sum by pro­vid­ing coun­tries with equip­ment, ex­per­tise, and tech­ni­cal knowl­edge to col­lect, re­move, trans­port, and dis­pose of this re­cur­ring threat.

Fur­ther sup­port will al­so be pro­vid­ed through rel­e­vant gen­der re­spon­sive train­ing and ca­pac­i­ty de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes.

Lo­cal­ly, there was ex­ten­sive stake­hold­er en­gage­ment and two pi­lot sites were se­lect­ed to tri­al the equip­ment be­ing pro­cured to re­move sar­gas­sum—Guayagua­yare in south Trinidad and Spey­side in To­ba­go.

On­shore equip­ment in­cludes light weight trac­tors, dump trucks, ma­chine sur­face rakes, con­vey­or, and mi­ni-All Ter­rain Ve­hi­cle) while nearshore equip­ment in­cludes bar­ri­er boom, work boats, aquat­ic con­vey­or

“The NSTG will act as a na­tion­al, in­ter-agency co-or­di­na­tion mech­a­nism for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of Sar­gas­sum Re­sponse for Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Dr Ju­man and Dr Mo­hammed added.

“In do­ing so, the Task Force will of­fer guid­ance and as­sis­tance to Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions of the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and oth­er sup­port agen­cies that serve as the first re­spon­ders for clean-up ef­forts, and will en­sure align­ment with the na­tion­al re­sponse frame­work.

“This is to en­sure that the sar­gas­sum in­va­sion is man­aged and ad­dressed in a time­ly and ef­fi­cient man­ner, that in­for­ma­tion is dis­sem­i­nat­ed among all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers and that neg­a­tive im­pacts are ei­ther pre­vent­ed or min­imised.”

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the NSTF will pro­vide over­sight over the de­vel­op­ment of a re­search and mon­i­tor­ing agen­da that will fa­cil­i­tate im­prove­ment in man­ag­ing the im­pacts of fu­ture oc­cur­rences of this nat­ur­al dis­as­ter and in­form the han­dling, dis­pos­al, stor­age, and util­i­sa­tion of Sar­gas­sum prod­ucts.

To do this, they will li­aise with lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al re­search in­sti­tu­tions and pri­vate sec­tor and ad­vise ac­cord­ing­ly.

“Sar­gas­sum is now be­ing trans­formed from ‘waste to wealth’, as there are many ini­tia­tives to val­orise this sea­weed in­to prod­ucts such as bio-stim­u­lants, emul­si­fiers, fu­coidants, al­gi­nates, bio-leather, 3-D mold­ed ob­jects for counter tops, an­i­mal feed, bio­plas­tic, and bio­gas,” the ar­ti­cle added.

“For this, we re­quire co­he­sive poli­cies and leg­is­la­tion, both na­tion­al­ly and re­gion­al­ly, which ad­dress the dif­fer­ent stages along the val­ue chain in­clud­ing col­lec­tion, stor­age, val­ori­sa­tion, and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion.”

The NSTF said it will work with the In­ter-Min­is­te­r­i­al In­te­grat­ed Coastal Zone Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee to en­sure there are co­he­sive poli­cies and plans to man­age sar­gas­sum along our coast­lines.

Na­tion­al Sar­gas­sum Task Force (NSTF)

Chair - Dr Ra­han­na Ju­man, Deputy Di­rec­tor of Re­search of the IMA

The oth­er mem­bers are:

Mar­cia Tin­to of the EMA

Mr Ri­car­do Mieux, Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries;

Renelle Bernard Brown, Min­istry of Works and Trans­port

Cur­mi­ra Gul­ston, Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty

Lin­ford Beck­les, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA)

Suzan Lakhan-Bap­tiste, Na­ture Seek­ers

Dr Ryan Mo­hammed, Aquat­ic Ecol­o­gist

Bar­ry Lovelace, Coun­cil of Pres­i­dents of the En­vi­ron­ment