Pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA), Regi­nald MacLean, says de­spite spend­ing over a quar­ter-mil­lion dol­lars to fight Sar­gas­sum sea­weed, the cri­sis is on­ly get­ting worse.

And he’s 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 UNDP part­ner­ship to com­bat the prob­lem.

He says the sea­weed is not just an eye­sore; it is dri­ving vis­i­tors away, nar­row­ing beach­es, and drain­ing busi­ness own­ers, who are forced to spend hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars to keep shore­lines clean.

MacLean is ask­ing for part­ner­ship be­fore To­ba­go’s tourism rep­u­ta­tion is dam­aged be­yond re­pair.

He says he is grate­ful for the UNDP’s as­sis­tance of US$25 mil­lion in fund­ing via Japan.

“Spey­side, To­ba­go, to be ex­act, is where part of that fund­ing will be spent, which is where we are lo­cat­ed,” he said. “Part of that is 1,000 me­ters of sar­gas­sum boom; alu­mini­um barge with a con­vey­or belt, etc; bas­kets to put it in­to trucks; and trucks to dump the stuff. And again, a main­te­nance pro­gram to keep all the all the equip­ment run­ning.”

But it’s not just ho­tels feel­ing the pres­sure.

Pres­i­dent of the All To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion, Cur­tis Dou­glas, says the sea­weed is de­stroy­ing boat en­gines, cut­ting in­to dai­ly catch­es, and mak­ing it hard­er for fish­er­men to earn a liv­ing.

“It dam­ages your fish­ing, and it’s very dif­fi­cult to catch fish around it be­cause some­times your line picks up stuff ... So, you can’t get as much as you would like to earn dur­ing the day. It lessens your prof­it when the day comes ... It is a high risk when it comes down in large por­tion like this,” he said.

Both stake­hold­ers be­lieve sea­weed is no longer just a sea­son­al nui­sance, but an eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal cri­sis that is in need of im­me­di­ate na­tion­al at­ten­tion.