A giant blob of seaweed in the Atlantic is discouraging tourists and threatening communities on the French Caribbean island of Martinique. Mounds of free-floating sargassum wash up on beaches, and as it rots, it releases toxic gases. Fishermen and entrepreneurs have taken matters into their own hands, coming up with a solution. 

Fort-de-France

Extreme weather events are occurring more frequently amid rising sea-levels and increasing temperatures.

Climate Crisis

Fishermen in Martinique battle sargassum crisis

On a normal day, José Viator's restaurant looks out onto one of Martinique's pristine white beaches. On a normal day, his business is thriving, and the air doesn't smell like rotten eggs. JOSÉ VIATOR, Owner, José Viator's Restaurant, Martinique, France The sargassum is the hardest challenge for us. Every year, we are forced to close our business because of the gas. There's just no way we can serve customers under these conditions. It started in 2011. Millions of tons of the free-floating brown seaweed called sargassum, stretching for thousands of kilometers in the Atlantic Ocean, enters the Caribbean. It chokes coves and blankets beaches. And as it rots, it releases toxic gases like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. People complain of sore throats, nausea and headaches. And it's happening close to the peak of the tourism season, and it's having a devastating effect on the economy. Before, it was very busy, but now with the seaweed, there's no one left. Tourists say they can't stay here, maybe because of their health or the smell. I don't know. But we can't get by without them. Fishermen are doing what they can, using booms and nets, and adapting their boats to trap hundreds of cubic meters of the algae every hour. If it doesn't reach shore and is collected in a net, it won't rot and release hydrogen sulfide. So we think it's one of the best solutions. That's why we're building other boats with new technologies to go even faster, because we realize that when there are large quantities of the seaweed, we have to move quickly to collect it. Sargassum blooms every spring in the Atlantic. But in the past decade, it's been flourishing, breaking records nearly every year. Scientists think ocean warming and industrial runoff could be to blame. The forecasts are not very good scientifically. I don't know what to do. Humanly speaking, we are finding solutions, and I think we will also reach a point where we will be able to use it as raw material for something. NASA has already warned that 2023 is shaping up to be the largest bloom on record. The people of Martinique will be on the front lines, and hope the solutions they're developing will go some way to helping the rest of the Caribbean. Alexandra Byars, Al Jazeera.

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