French Caribbean fishers plan united response to sargassum

Fishers in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana are being urged to take a united front against the sargassum invasions that have been wreaking havoc on the fishing industry over the past five years.

According to a report carried by France Info in April, the mayor of Cayenne, Marie-Laure Phinéra-Horth, told the beleaguered French Guianese fishermen, “You must present a common front with the French West Indies. We, the elected, that is what we are going to do.”

In her capacity as vice-president of Interco’Outre-mer, an organization representing French overseas departments, Phinéra-Horth was expected to lead a delegation of fishing industry representatives to present their case to the government on 9 April. A councillor from the Ministry of Ecological Transition was expected to receive the delegation, France Info said.

Among the demands being made by the delegation is an emergency indemnification of the fishers for their losses, estimated at EUR 10,000 (USD 12,333) a year for each fisher, due to the seaweed.

“For five years, it has been the same ritual. Impossible to fish, or even to launch their boats,” the report cites the fishermen as saying. “The sargassum seaweeds invade the littoral from January to May.”

“The losses are colossal,” the report states.

The mayor is also urging a technical study that would lead to solutions for preventing and dealing with the sargassum invasions.

Since 2011, the Caribbean has seen an uprecedented influx of the sargassum seaweed, in many cases one metre thick, that blankets beaches and fills the surrounding waters, leading to the deaths of marine wildlife such as turtles and severe disruption of the region's vital fishing and tourism industries. The region has yet to find a solution to combat the almost yearly invasions that are attributed to warmer oceans due to climate change.

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