One of the challenges in clearing the Sargassum seaweed is that it has to be done manually.
That’s according to Minister of Environment, National Beautification, and the Blue and Green Economy, Adrian ‘Medic’ Forde responding to the heavy presence of the pungent seaweed blanketing the shore at Skeete’s Bay, St Philip, and piling up under the jetty due to extremely strong sea swells.
“[Former Minister] Kirk [Humphrey] was trying to say it for the last two years. You cannot go and mechanically remove the seaweed because the beach is a biodiverse place where turtles nest, so you cannot go with tractors and the other equipment that we would love to use, and just lift up the seaweed and put it in trucks,” Forde said yesterday.
He added they had increased the number of workers to more than 100 after the Ministry of People Empowerment had employed workers to remove the seaweed manually from beaches across the country, noting it was not for lack of effort that the deed was not done. (RA)
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