ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, Oct 2, CMC – Grenada has been selected as the location for the regional sargassum secretariat and information hub, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said Wednesday.
Mitchell, speaking at the end of the two-day second European Union-Caribbean Global Gateway conference on sargassum, told reporters that the decision to place the secretariat here was among the decisions taken at the conference.
“Coming out of the conference there are a couple of things Grenada intends to champion and to lead regionally on this issue. Some of our proposals include the creation of a regional sargassum secretariat and the creation of a regional information sargassum hub.
“We think this is critical to ensure that we have a central coordinating body for policy development, research, collaboration and sustainable management of sargassum efforts throughout the region,” Mitchell told reporters.
“This is important if we are going to share best practice to facilitate resource mobilisation for ensuring that we can have valorisation strategies that are successful and Grenada has put its hands up and we are happy to in fact become the secretariat and the information hub,” he added.
The details for the secretariat are yet to be worked out but it’s expected to become that focal point for sargassum related activities for both the private and public sector.
The two-day conference, held under the theme “Turning the Tide: Sustainable Practices and Economic Opportunities for Sargassum in the Caribbean Basin”, was an initiative aimed at addressing the growing environmental and socio-economic impact of sargassum seaweed across the Caribbean Basin.
It sought to build regional capacity, attract investment, and promote innovation to transform this environmental challenge into sustainable economic opportunities. Since 2011, the Caribbean region has been grappling with unprecedented amounts of sargassum washing ashore, impacting beaches, disrupting marine ecosystems, and threatening key economic sectors, particularly tourism and fisheries.
Mitchell had told the cnference that sargassum influxes have far-reaching consequences for the region’s coastal economies and communities and the conference will offer an exceptional platform for fostering dialogue, mobilizing action, and securing investment in sustainable solutions.
The Director General of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Commission, Dr. Didacus Jules, had told the more than 400 participants that there is a need for coordinated regional approach to handle the influx of sargassum into the Caribbean seas and onto Caribbean beaches.
“Sargassum knows no boundaries and neither should our response …the influxes that we face require not only national efforts but a coordinated regional strategy. We need to work together on forecasting, collections, storage and processing,” he said.
CMC/ls/ir/2024