Once upon a time, the Caribbean Sea conjured images of pristine waters and white sandy beaches, but that is no longer the case. Since 2011, the region has been facing an increase of sargassum that is causing havoc on its tourism industry, forcing several small developing islands to allocate vast amounts of resources to deal with this invasive algae species, and remove it from their beaches before its rotten smell sends away tourists coming here on vacation. The large amount of sargassum that comes from the ‘New Atlantic Sargassum Belt’ which has emerged between West Africa and North-Eastern Brazil about 15 years ago, often referred to as the orange tide, threatens to cover almost every beach in the region.

Off-shore, sargassum plays a positive role for fisheries, turtles and other marine species, but when the algae comes in abundant quantities and accumulates over the sand, the colour palette of the landscape changes from light orange to brown as it begins to decompose, releasing toxic gases such as ammonia and hydrogen sulphide. By the time it dries out and turns black, the sargassum accumulates and releases pollutants such as pesticides and heavy metals onto the shore, causing a ‘dead zone’ where almost no fish or coral can survive as the water runs out of light and oxygen.

It is believed that an increase in phosphate and nitrogen water pollution, in combination with warming waters due to climate change, has significantly increased the amount of the seaweed in the Sargasso Sea which then gets carried by currents, creating the sargassum belt. Less than a year ago, I knew almost nothing about sargassum until I attended a side event at COP28 in Dubai, where the European Union and Caribbean countries discussed the crisis caused by sargassum and the possible solutions to turn this crisis into a business opportunity for locals.

In July of 2024, I travelled to Barbados, the Dominican Republic and Mexico with photographer and diver Lautaro Isern to find out what kind of initiatives try to tackle the sargassum menace in the Caribbean. Our first stop was Bridgetown, on the eastern end of the Caribbean, where Barbados stands alone as the first island of the archipelago, most vulnerable to sargassum inundation. This small, triangle-shaped island had just been hit by Hurricane Beryl, which caused severe damage to the local fishing industry and took part of the sargassum away from the south coast. Barbados’ east coast still had plenty of algae accumulated across its shore, so we had a chance to grasp, smell and photograph the dreadful scene that has been affecting the island for over a decade. To examine the effects of this orange tide of sargassum on coral reefs around the south-east coast in Barbados, we went for a dive off Brownes Beach with Bajan biologist Micaela Small. While drifting from the shore towards a wreck where tourists tend to go to see turtles, Micaela explained to us that if large influxes of sargassum reach the reefs near shore, they decompose causing a sargassum orange tide which, in turn, reduces the oxygen and increases nutrients in the water. Once the water turns brown, the health of corals is affected as they require pristine water to thrive, causing the bleaching of native coral species.