Last week we showed you the Sargassum smothering San Pedro's beaches, befouling the shoreline, "stanking up" the sea breeze, and scaring away precious tourism dollars.
It's a real crisis for La Isla Bonita - and tonight an urgent community meeting will be held to discuss solutions. It will be chaired by area rep and Minister of the Blue Economy Andre Perez about the Sargassum scourge that has descended upon the island that he calls home.
Here's what he had to say about what he calls an ambitious solution to the problem of Sargassum.
Hon. Andre Perez, Minister of the Blue Economy
"I believe that we have a good plan of action. My team has visited Playa del Carmen a company. that actually has some floating pontoon boats and they are making a presentation there this evening in San Pedro all stakeholders on board as well. I think we have a brilliant plan where we can I don't want to go ahead of myself in speaking but I think we are looking at bringing a fleet of pontoon boats that will be able to capture the sargassum in the water not on the beach and uniquely speaking with Caye Caulker and San Pedro there are cuts in the reef and when you fly over the reef you can clearly see the sargussum turns into like a bottleneck and it comes through the cuts, this is where the bulk of the Sargussum is coming from. We are making this a viscious plan to capture that Sargassum before it lands at sea."
"Certainly this it can be clearly done by the council and the different hoteliers that are on the beach certainly this, it is going to cost part of it funding that we have to seek out there, also we are going to be working in the marine reserves as well as the private sector because it's not only about obtaining these pontoon boats we also have to maintain them, the burning of diesel, we also have to set up a place where it is going to be collected. So, it's an ambitious plan but we are starting today."
