Is Belize’s beach tourism under threat due to Sargassum piling up on our beaches?

By Zoila Palma Gonzalez: For the seventh consecutive year, sargassum seaweed is piling up on Belizean beaches. The mountains of sargassum cause a stench on the beaches and make the water unswimmable.

In popular tourist destinations such as Hopkins, Placencia, and San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, residents have confirmed that excessive quantities of sargassum are covering the beaches.

In neighboring Quintana Roo, several beaches have been closed due to excessive sargassum.

A report by National Geographic noted that most hotels in Mexico use barriers to deviate the algae to ‘sacrifice spots’ and use mechanical bands or bulldozers to upload the algae to trucks. The sargassum is then disposed of on nearby lands.

To date, the Mexican Navy harvests sargassum from barriers that had been installed at sea. As of May 2021, they had already collected 10,000 tons of sargassum. But, the seaweed continues to affect the region and experts fear that this year could be worse than the sargassum wave in 2018.

The Government of Belize recently sent a team to Mexico to learn how authorities are dealing with the sargassum seaweed situation that plagues the region.

Several excursions planned for the Southern beaches in Belize have been cancelled due to the sargassum problem.

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