4 months ago, we told you about the sargassum phenomenon which was swamping beaches all over Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Belize wasn't spared, and though it affected the tourism industry, we weren't hit as hard as the other countries in the Caribbean.
Well, CARICOM immediately activated to try to come up with a solution to the problem, and today, we asked the Executive Director of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism about it.
Here's what he told us about the possible fix to what as been described as an "sargassum seeweed invasion," by some Caribbean leaders:
Milton Haughton, Exec. Dir., CRFM
"The Sargassum situation is a challenge for all of us in the region. We first had a massive inundation of Sargassum seaweed in 2011. For 2012, 2013 we did not have much. 2014 we had a little more and last year it was a major problem throughout the Caribbean region, massive problem and based on the scientific information that we and our partners have been able to gather we know that the Sargassum is coming from, not the Sargasso Sea as was initially thought but an area in the Atlantic, just in the southern Atlantic. It seems clear that this is associated with climate change but also with other factors such as nutrient enrichment in the ocean and the elevated temperatures of these Sargassum seaweed they grow, they proliferate in that environment with a high level of nutrients and a higher level of nutrients and warmer 
waters. And then the drift across and come to the Caribbean region, as well as into Africa because the phenomena we experience in the Caribbean was taking place not just in the Caribbean but in the Caribbean and Africa at the same time. So it is a massive, massive ocean wide phenomena but it's very disruptive. It has been very disruptive to our fishers. Many of our fishers, particularly in the Eastern Caribbean where they had really, really massive quantities, in some cases nearly as high as this building, coming ashore. We have been looking at ways of utilizing the Sargassum seaweed, because Sargassum is not very new, it's not new to people involved in the marine industries. In the Gulf of Mexico for example, there are having problem with Sargassum seaweed for many years and they have developed technologies and ways of utilizing it beneficially - using it as fertilizers and a number of other things. It can be used to make compressed wood for example in construction and there are host of other possible uses."
According to the director, the problem with turning sargassum harvesting into for beneficial uses, is that it must be profitable to the innovators, and the washing up of sargassum would have to keep happening on a large scale. Of course, if that happens, it would be a continuous problem for beaches all across the region.
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