Even though on Monday, June 24, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, declared that the sargasso situation was not a serious problem in the presence of the governor of Quintana Roo, on Thursday June 27, Carlos Joaquín inaugurated the “High Level Meeting for Sargasso Attention in the Caribbean”, an act with which the state governor recognizes that this is a very serious problem both for the tourism industry and for the ecology of the entire Caribbean region.
Experts from 13 countries participate in the High Level Meeting for Sargasso Care in the Greater Caribbean that is currently taking place in Cancun, and that seeks to establish mechanisms for control and containment of the macro algae situation.
At the event, which was attended by Eduardo Enrique Murat Hinojosa, president of the Committee on Environment and Climate Change of the Mexican Senate, as well as Dr. June Christine Marie Sommer, Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States, Governor Carlos Joaquín highlighted that centers for the study of macroalgae have been formed in Quintana Roo together with the federal government and the private initiative.
In addition, with the participation of the society in general, brigades have been established to keep the beaches clean and to avoid the effects that the sargasso produces, such as bad odor and sulfuric acid that kills sea grasses.
“Together we have to advance in the protection of our natural treasures, which are attractive to thousands of tourists who visit us year after year” explained the governor.
Between workers of the State Government and organized civil society, more than 522,000 tons of sargasso have been collected in seven municipalities in a three-phase operation and a monthly investment of 332,500 pesos.
The objective of the event is to develop a regional cooperation agenda for the Caribbean region, in order to address the containment and control of the arrival of sargassum and the mitigation of its environmental effects.
The summit has summoned specialists from Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti , Cuba, Panama, Guadalupe Island (French territory), Guyana and Guatemala.
by Alejandro Azcárate for The Yucatán Times
