Understanding the ongoing environmental and economic catastrophe generated by the proliferation of sargassum, the Dominican Republic has taken decisive action to turn this crisis into an opportunity for sustainable development.
According to the Association of Hotels and Tourism of the Dominican Republic (Asonahores), each property is being forced to spend up to $70,000 annually on seaweed collection and disposal.
In order to maintain pristine, Instagram-worthy beaches for tourists, hoteliers have to spend as much as $1.5 million per kilometer (0.62 miles) of coastline each year—a figure that doesn’t even include the installation of ocean barriers and the purchasing and deployment of “sargazero” vessels.
These costs are comparable to those faced by their peers in Cancun, who are burning up to $120 million annually to keep their beaches sargassum-free.
Much like in Mexico, Dominican Republic businessmen, the government and scientists from the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo (INTEC) are actively exploring potential commercial applications to transform sargassum into large-scale business ventures.
According to El País, potential uses include “biostimulants for agriculture, activated carbon for the treatment of acidic waters closed mines, advanced oxidation technologies for water purification and alginate for biopolymers in the manufacture of bioplastics.”
However, experts note that limited state funding, combined with the lack of regional collaboration to strengthen collective efforts against this nightmare that affects most Caribbean countries, continues to hinder progress in sargassum utilization.
“Despite having this problem since 2011, there are still very few industrial-scale applications for sargassum, largely due to insufficient financial support for research and a lack scientific integration at the regional level,” laments Ulises Jáuregui, coordinator of the interdisciplinary sargassum research group at INTEC.
To date, sargassum is used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, in the generation of biogas and also in the development of building material, crafts and furniture.
And while all these applications sound promising, they remain small-scale efforts, barely making a dent in the massive problem that sargassum brings to the Caribbean every season.
Once celebrated as the “Golden Forest” for its vital role in the marine ecosystem, the overgrowth of sargassum now threatens tourism, as visitors avoid beaches buried in algae, and marine life, because it suffocates coral reefs and mangroves and kills dolphins and turtles by blocking light and oxygen, as well as poising the waters when releasing ammonia and hydrogen sulfide.
Sargassum seaweed photos from Dominican Republic Season 2024
“Currently, sargassum takes around 70 days to reach the beaches from the Great Belt to the southeast of Hispaniola, with over 68 million tons per year,” stated Jimmy García, President of the National Authority for Maritime Affairs (ANAMAR).
According to Garcia, the biggest obstacle to accelerating the commercial use of sargassum is that the scientific research required to put this into practice is prohibitively expensive for any Caribbean government.
Despite this, some entrepreneurs remain optimistic about the economic potential of seaweed.
Andrés Bisonó León, founder and CEO of SOS Carbon, aims to collect up to 70% of sargassum in the open sea using his innovative technology.
The company estimates it can utilize over 90% of the sargassum it collects, to transform the Caribbean into a BlueTech Center—a hub for advanced maritime industry technology.
So far, they have inked business agreements with 10 countries, where the seaweed is being repurposed for the textile and other industries.
Given that tourism accounts for 16% of the country’s GDP, and employs over 330,000 locals, the Dominican Republic is expected to intensify its efforts to combat sargassum over the upcoming months.