For years, sargassum has been plaguing coastal communities across the country. But those from the Hol Chan Marine Reserve, along with San Pedro's area rep., may have a sargassum solution. Today, they showcased two harvesters that will go out into the sea and collect the sargassum before it gets to the shore.
They're hoping that this will only be the start, and that the rest of the country will follow suit to squash the sargassum situation.
Courtney Menzies was in San Pedro for a demonstration and has this story.
San Pedro Town is tackling its sargassum situation with newly purchased harvesters. These two machines will meet the smelly seaweed out in the water before it can even reach the shore. The harvesters essentially rake up the sargassum onto a conveyor belt which then dumps it onto the machine.
It's the start of a solution to a long time problem, and according to the Area Rep and Minister of the Blue Economy, it took about 18 months to get here.
Andre Perez, Minister of Blue Economy
"These two harvesters are just prototypes that we're introducing and as I said earlier in my speech that when we got these two harvesters, they had to do a lot of modifications, retrofitting, so that it fits our waters, which of course our waters in Belize is very unique. So that took some time and now that it's working, you've seen for yourself that it's really working so now the community can expect that it's going to be placed to work but obviously two is not enough but now that we have done all the work, everything falls into place easily for example, sourcing more, eventually creating a fleet, bringing it here. Of course, Hol Chan is the custodian of these vessels, they are the ones who know how to service these machines, they are the ones who do the training, all of these things, they come with that so it's not only getting these harvesters."
And after the sargassum is collected, what happens next? Minister Perez says it can be used multiple ways, especially since it won't contain grains of sand.
Andre Perez, Minister of Blue Economy
"Sargassum, there's always a lot of use for it, some people used it for landfill but there's always the problem of labor intensive collecting sargassum because it washes up on the shores. You have the council, you have all the resorts raking, and that becomes hard to collect because they're just putting lumps all across the beach. That's a problem to collect as well, it's labor intensive. Now, putting one set collection center, and it's clean because we're getting it from the water, then the distribution of it for anybody who wants to use it for filling up their land or to easily discard it away for landfill is going to be more manageable because it's one specific place so it eliminates a lot of resources."
But these two harvesters aren't enough to solve the issue for the rest of the country. However, with San Pedro leading the charge, Perez says it won't be hard for other communities and even the private sector to get onboard.
Andre Perez, Minister of Blue Economy
"This is showcasing but it's going to have a cost so we're inviting everyone, they have seen it, we want to reach out together and as I rightfully said again, this is a collaborative effort between everyone, not only the government, Hol Chan, the private sector, the public, of course we want to thank Social Security for providing those funds. So all of this together, I see no reason why in the future we can't be making a big difference in the next couple of years in fighting, mitigating the issue of sargassum across this country. Not only San Pedro and Caye Caulker but all the different coastal towns."
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