is the sargasso sea dangerousis the sargasso sea dangerous

But even early witnesses recognised its value: it provides a safe harbour and breeding ground for fish, turtles and other marine life. It described an iconic Sargassum based ecosystem, wherein accumulated mats of the algae acted as nursery and feeding areas for juvenile turtles and many species of fish and seabirds. What is alarming, is the rate at which it is growing. The wider significance of this issue is that the UNGA has been discussing possible actions to support the conservation and management of biodiversity in ABNJ since the first meeting of the Ad hoc Open-ended Working Group in 2006 (Freestone, 2019). ICES (2021). Available at: https://eos.org/features/monitoringocean-change-in-the-21st-century. Mar. Photograph: Guajillo. The extensive supporting bibliography in CBD (2015a) should be referred to for details of the Sargasso Sea case, and to a lesser extent that in CBD (2015b) for the separate seamount case. Its very alarming in the first place to see it on the beaches, and alarming to see all the plastic that is entangled in it. The floating Sargassum macroalgae for which it is named support a diverse and productive ocean ecosystem. Subsequently, the two discrete and separately bounded areas of the New England and the Corner Rise Seamounts were described as a static multiple feature EBSA by the Northwest Atlantic regional EBSA workshop in Montreal, Canada, 24-28 March 2014 (Johnson and Frojn, 2021) and subsequently identified as an EBSA by CBD COP 12 in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea, 6-17 October 2014 (CBD, 2014). (2020b) and a number of papers discussing the conservation status of seamounts and these New England seamounts in particular e.g., Diz (2016); Watling and Auster (2017); Watling and Auster (2021). There is no doubt that it has served to increase the global recognition of the importance of the Sargasso Sea ecosystem. The Sargasso Sea is a high seas ecosystem located within the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre. Read about our approach to external linking. Mansfield K. L., Wynekin J., Lou J. Oceanographer Ajit Subramaniam on a research expedition. Phycology 1 (2), 83104. SSC (2014) Hamilton Declaration on Collaboration for the Conservation of the Sargasso Sea, (2014). WECAFC (1973) Western Central Atlantic Fishery Commission (WECAFC). Thats so scary, said Sophie Ringel, founder of the non-profit Clean Miami Beach. Spanning 8,850 kilometres (5,000 miles), the seaweed bloom, known as the great Atlantic sargassum belt, was the largest ever recorded. While the coronavirus pandemic has stalled production for now, Morrison hopes to scale up and start selling cheap sargassum feed across Jamaica next year. In June 2022, Hu estimated the size of the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt to be 24.2m tonnes about four times the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza. In the fisheries sector the regulation of fishing for tunas and tuna like species throughout the Atlantic is the responsibility of the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT, 1966). Commun. Patients complained of heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, vertigo, headache, and skin rashes. Further work on White (Gaube etal., 2018), and Blue sharks (Vandeperre etal., 2014; Braun etal., 2019) emphasise the importance of the Sargasso Sea and its surrounding currents and mesoscale eddies to these long distance migrants. Roe H. S. J., Freestone D., Kell L., Luckhurst B. E., Warren T. (2021).Chapter 7q The Sargasso Sea, in UN Second World Ocean Assessment (World Ocean Assessment II United Nations New York). doi: 10.1163/15718085-12341399, Dunn D., Ardron J., Bax N., Bernal P., Cleary J., Cresswell I., et al. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. A floating mass of seaweed stretching from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico is now the biggest seaweed bloom in the world, according to satellite observations. The 2012 identification as an EBSA undoubtedly assisted that recognition. CBD (2021) Special Places in the Ocean A Decade of Identifying Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs). As a community we decided to do this to protect the planet and take care of our beaches, says Gonzalo Balderas, founder of Biomaya Initiative. Front. VideoYour Planet - environment news, Football transfers: Keep across the biggest moves. Cotti-Rausch B. E., Lomas M. W., Lachenmyer E. M., Baumann E. G., Richardson T. L. (2020). Causes of the proliferation of sargasso are thought to be the influx of fertilizers from the Amazon and Congo river basins; dust blown in from the Sahara Desert carrying nitrogen, phosphorus, and iron; and increased surface temperature of the ocean. Its a crucial habitat for crabs, shrimps and other marine invertebrates, which in turn provide a rich floating buffet for seabirds including gulls, terns and plovers. All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt. It is well known that some flag states are more rigorous in their enforcement activities than others. (FAO Rome) Available at: https://www.fao.org/in-action/vulnerable-marinehttps://www.fao.org/in-action/vulnerable-marine-ecosystems/background/deep-sea-guidelines/fr/ecosystems/background/deep-sea-guidelines/fr/. (CBD, 2012b; Freestone, 2016). (2019) could not detect small rafts of Sargassum nor any Sargassum below the sea surface (Bach etal., 2021). On Near-Shore Caribbean Seagrass Communities. That action was prompted by a proposal supported by the US and the EU from 2012 (Diz, 2016), relying on the fact that the Sargasso Sea had been identified as an EBSA. The diversity of species living in association with Sargassum remains high (see CBD, 2015a). The OSPAR parties have established a series of High Sea marine protected areas within its jurisdiction zone (OSPAR, 2021). Jamie Oliver has embraced it as a recipe ingredient; Victoria Beckham uses it to keep off the pounds. And the animals out in the ocean who live on it, they try to get nutrition from it and automatically ingest the plastic, Ringel said. The Sargasso Sea ( / srso /) is a region of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by four currents forming an ocean gyre. We really want to make the public aware of these associated risks. (2022 forthcoming) have drilled down at a more sophisticated level into the actual practice of these organizations in putting conservation measures in place, but for present purposes the Dunn chart is more than adequate (edited version reproduced here as Table 1). The bricks are cheaper than traditional cement blocks. "This is all ultimately related to climate change because it affects precipitation and ocean circulation and even human activities, but what we've shown is that these blooms do not occur because of increased water temperature," said Dr Hu. Oc. doi:10.1111/fog.12136, Bach L. T., Tamsitt V., Gower J., Hurd C. L., Raven J. Allen and a team of researchers from the universities of Exeter and Bath devised a process called hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL), which uses high pressure and temperature to split wet biomass into four components: a bio oil that can be upgraded to biodiesel, water-soluble organic compounds used to produce fertiliser, carbon dioxide (which the researchers say they aim to capture rather than release into the atmosphere) and char, a solid material containing all the metals found in the seaweed, which the team also plans to recover at a later stage. Cephalopods of the Sargasso Sea: Distribution Patterns in Relation to Oceanography. Available at: http://www.sargassoseacommission.org/storage/SCRS_2013_132_Inventory_and_Ecology_of_Fish_Species_of_Interest_to_ICCAT_in_the_Sargasso_Sea.pdf. The problem of otherness in the world of Wide Sargasso Sea is all-pervading and labyrinthine. (2019). Nevertheless, the existing sectoral organizations although comprised of representatives of the same countries as the CBD parties, have not to date taken advantage of the wealth of scientific information now available on EBSAs to pre-emptively use their own regulatory powers to enact protection measures in response to actual or possible future impacts (as a precautionary approach would prescribe) of their activities (Freestone and Gjerde, 2016). Sargassum seaweed blob heading to Florida explained | CNN It can provide food and a place to live for a wide range of sea creatures such as fish, turtles and shrimp. Mar. A more basic problem, however, is how to dispose of this contaminated biomass. The algal explosion in the Atlantic . (2014) Assessing the Economic Contribution of Marine and Coastal Ecosystem Services in the Sargasso Sea. Whilst S. fluitans and S. natans can no longer be regarded as rare or unique to the Sargasso Sea, the wider definition of EBSA Category 1 viz rare or endemic species, habitat and communities still hold true for the Sargasso Sea. Seaweed has been having a moment. Here's what you need to know. (2015). Available at: https://www.fao.org/fishery/en/organization/22150/en. The idea that it can be a nature-based solution for getting rid of some of this very small fraction but still significant amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide, I think is an important and exciting idea, Subramaniam says. This is not a new phenomenon and many local governments, particularly in south Florida, are experienced in managing it on their beaches and already have management plans and the necessary authorizations in place to respond, a DEP spokesperson, Jon Moore, told the Guardian. Res. Freestone D., Harris V. (2017). After that we are seeing recurring, massive sargassum blooms in the central Atlantic, says Mengqiu Wang of the University of South Florida, one of the team who discovered the Atlantic-spanning bloom in 2018. Overall, though, the researchers have recorded huge increases in sargassum over the last decade, and expect it to continue. Subramaniam calculates that sinking the seaweed to a depth of between 2,000 and 4,000 metres will keep it submerged for several hundred years. Against this background is it possible to make an assessment of the extent to which the 2012 identification of the Sargasso Sea as an EBSA has assisted the Sargasso Sea Commission with its goal of putting conservation measures in place for the Sargasso Sea though collaboration with the existing sectoral organizations. There has also been a suggestion based upon mathematical modelling that spawning of European eels might occur over the mid-Atlantic ridge (Chang etal., 2020) but there are no observations to support this hypothesis. The Importance of Exploring the Sargasso Sea: 'Spiritual and Aesthetic Ignoring it can be dangerous and odorous. Residents of Mexican coastal towns face a daunting task to try to clear the mounds of sargassum by hand (Credit: Getty Images). Instead of a century-old assumption that eels swim at high speed to meet up in the Sargasso Sea for a single, springtime orgy, it seems some are quite happy to take their time and may even. Pap. Mesoscale Eddies Influence the Movements of Mature Female White Sharks in the Gulf Stream and Sargasso Sea. The thickness of sargasso rafts gets larger, and the shores get hit by walls of sargasso mass. (NEAFC London) Available at: https://www.neafc.org/system/files/Text-of-NEAFC-Convention-04.pdf. 231266 . There are currently many national and international efforts to understand the causes of the blooms,. The work already underway for the Summary Science Case provided the basis for the preparation of an EBSA proposal and that proposal was presented by the Government of Bermuda on behalf of the SSA at the Wider Caribbean and Western Mid-Atlantic Regional Workshop to Facilitate the Description of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas, 28 February2 March 2012, held in Recife, Brazil. Vol. Pelagic Sargassum and its Associated Mobile Fauna in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and the Sargasso Sea (Texas A&M University Texas, United States). The results will also be used to develop possible models for regional and global international coordination of governance for areas like the Sargasso Sea which hopefully will both inform and contribute to the ongoing BBNJ discussions. The process has indeed, as the CBD claims, demonstrated the value of an intensely collaborative approach to marine biodiversity evaluation that is rare in contemporary marine science and management. (CBD, 2021). Since 2014 five more governments have signed the Declaration bringing the total number of Government Signatories to ten British Virgin Islands, Bahamas, and Canada in 2016, Cayman Islands in 2017, and Dominican Republic in 2018. The emissions from travel it took to report this story were 0kg CO2. (CMS Bonn) Available at: https://www.cms.int/sites/default/files/document/cms_cop13_decisions_e_rev.1.pdf. Freestone D., Roe H. S. J., Inniss L., Laffoley D., Morrison K. K., Rice J., et al. So, has being described as an EBSA helped conservation efforts in the Sargasso Sea? But now giant clumps of the 13m-ton morass labeled the Great Atlantic sargassum belt are washing up on Floridas beaches, scientists are warning of a real-life threat from the piles of decomposing algae, namely high levels of the flesh-eating Vibrio bacteria lurking in the vegetation. The seaweed has inundated beaches, causing an environmental nuisance. (modern). More than 300 sites have been described as EBSAs (CBD, 2021); one of the earliest, and at the time the biggest, was the 2 million square miles of the Sargasso Sea ecosystem. The states department of environmental protection (DEP), meanwhile, says its working with the Florida fish and wildlife commission and municipalities to monitor the seaweed belt, and notes that the Florida legislature has budgeted $5m to assist local governments with cleanup efforts. These blooms may well be the new norm for this region and are causing major socio-economic problems for local communities, health risks due to the production of hydrogen sulphide from decaying Sargassum, and environmental catastrophes including considerable faunal mortality, blanketing of coral reefs and seagrass meadows and destruction of turtle nest sites (see, for example, van Tussenbroek etal., 2017, Resiere etal., 2018, Bartlett and Elmer, 2021). Front. This paper reviews the scientific evidence supporting the finding that it meets the rigorous criteria for an EBSA and assesses whether there have been major changes in the decade since. There are some drawbacks, though. In the water, Sargassum is considered harmless to people. Ed. And although in the Sargasso sea the seaweed is an environmental haven, such blankets of sargassum near the coast can smother coral beds and prevent coastal fish from getting oxygen. Available at: https://www.ospar.org/site/assets/files/1290/ospar_convention-1.pdf. The group of young engineers and biologists travelled to the Dominican Republic to understand the scale of the problem and try to find solutions. In 2012 Bermuda attempted on behalf of the SSA to draw attention to the Sargasso Sea EBSA in a 2012 Resolution at ICCAT. What is of interest is that most of these bodies have criteria strikingly similar for implementing ABMTs for activities under their control as those that are used to identify an EBSA description. At Seaweed Generation she developed technology to use the seaweed as a carbon sink. Cotti-Rausch etal. [1] Unlike all other regions called seas, it has no land boundaries. It has suffered dramatic declines and is a protected species. Knowledge obtained from BATS allowed Venter etal. (Washington DC:NOAA) Available at: https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex2104/welcome.html. Available at: https://nmsstellwagen.blob.core.windows.net/stellwagenprod/media/archive/sister/pdfs/bermuda_moa12.pdf. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The Seamounts of the Sargasso Sea: Adequately Protected? Intl. (2018). In 2018, Laura Beristain Navarrete, mayor of coastal town Playa del Carmen in Mexico, told a local newspaper that tourist numbers in the region had fallen by up to 35% due to sargassum. A loggerhead sea turtle hatchling in sargassum off Florida. Empirical observations of the spawning migration of European eels: The (CBD Montreal) Available at: https://chm.cbd.int/database/record?documentID=200098. But also clear from the data, is that it is growing inexorably, fed by the climate crisis. Fed by human activity such as intensive soya farming in the Congo, the Amazon and the Mississippi, which dumps nitrogen and phosphorus into the ocean, the sargassum explosion is by far the biggest seaweed bloom on the planet.