Sargassum Systems: A Comparative Analysis of Policy Responses to the New Caribbean Seaweed Crisis
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SARGASSUM SYSTEMS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF
POLICY RESPONSES TO THE NEW CARIBBEAN
SEAWEED CRISIS
LEO JOBSIS ROSSIGNOL*
INTRODUCTION
Sargassum seaweed was once a mere occasional guest to Ameri-
can coasts.1 However, beginning in 2011, the minor out-drifts from the
Sargasso Sea that found their way to Caribbean shores have been re-
placed by thick mats of the free-floating pelagic algae stretching miles
and weighing millions of tons.2 These new masses of Sargassum have
swamped and choked out important ecosystems, destroyed local econo-
mies dependent on fishing and tourism, and even rendered certain towns
and communities uninhabitable throughout the region.' In just a decade,
Sargassum has gone from a nonfactor to the source of a terrible crisis,
likely as a result of changing climate patterns and increased logging and
farming in the Amazon watershed.'
Of course, the challenges posed by this new crisis have not gone
unanswered. Government agencies and international organizations, as well
as private parties, have all made attempts to tackle the new problems
JD Candidate, William & Mary Law School, 2023; BA Economics and History, New
College of Florida, 2018. The author thanks his colleagues at ELPR for their patience and
diligence in producing this work, and friends and family back home for their important
assistance with research.
1 See Y.A. Fidai, J. Dash, E.L. Tompkins & T. Tonon, A Systematic Review of Floating and
Beach Landing Records of Sargassum Beyond the Sargasso Sea, ENV'T RSCH. COMMC'NS,
Dec. 2020, at 1, 3.
2 Id.
' Clifford Louime, Jodany Fortune & Gary Gervais, Sargassum Invasion of Coastal
Environments: A Growing Concern, 13 AM. J. ENv'T SCIs. 58, 60-61 (2017).
'Jake Spring, Examiner: Scientists Come Closer to Solving Caribbean Seaweed Mystery,
REUTERS, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/scientists-come-closer-solving-carib
bean-seaweed-mystery-2021-09-29/ [https://perma.cc/7PZG-BPU2] (Sept. 29, 2021, 8:07
AM). This is, predictably, disputed. While many stakeholders identify anthropogenic
factors as the primary cause of the new Sargassum blooms, others blame warm seas and
high nutrient load without asserting the source of these changes, and others still cite likely,
unrelated natural phenomena. Sien van der Plank, Jack Corbett, Janice Cumberbatch,
Bethia Thomas & Emma Tompkins, Management of Sargassum Influxes in the Caribbean:
National and Regional Governance of a Transboundary Marine Species 13-16 (SARTRAC,
Working Paper No. 1, 2021).
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Sargassum Systems: A Comparative Analysis of Policy Responses to the New Caribbean Seaweed Crisis
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