Sargassum Now a Valuable Resource in Mexico

Mexico City — The Mexican government's decision to incorporate holopelagic Caribbean sargassum as a fishery resource with development potential is a positive measure that will regulate these activities and allow for the establishment of guidelines to protect the organisms that come with it, stated Marcia Leticia Durand Smith, a researcher at the Regional Multidisciplinary Research Center (CRIM) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

The environmental anthropologist highlighted that the significance of the fisheries charter is its potential to regulate the final disposal of this product, which generates negative consequences if deposited indiscriminately. When left to decompose, it releases leachates—typically toxic liquids—that can filter into aquifers, she explained.

As previously reported, on August 6, the Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Mexican Institute for Research in Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture, the National Commission for Aquaculture and Fisheries, and the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources announced an update to the National Fisheries Charter. This update incorporates sargassum as a fishery resource with development potential.

This charter is an instrument that regulates fishing practices in Mexico, establishing how, where, and when they should be conducted to maintain the sustainability of fisheries. It includes guidelines covering everything from shrimp to large fish, Durand Smith recalled during her participation in the sixth session of the Interinstitutional Seminar "Entramados Naturaleza, Cultura y Sociedad" (Frameworks of Nature, Culture, and Society).

Durand Smith added, "This is a measure that aims to begin the transformation of sargassum, considered garbage or waste, into something useful that has economic and commercial value." The objective is to incentivize its fishing and collection before it reaches the beach, for use in biofuels, biofertilizers, alginates, resins, or as a complement for these materials, she noted.

She also emphasized that the development of a market and products derived from these macroalgae is still a distant prospect. Furthermore, there may be certain obstacles and complications in dealing with the thousands of tons that wash ashore.

The seminar, organized by the Peninsular Center for Humanities and Social Sciences and the Multidisciplinary Research Center on Chiapas and the Southern Border—both of UNAM—dedicated the session to the topic "Reflections on some controversies of environmental governance in socio-environmental fields. The sargassum crisis in the Mexican Caribbean: What do the algae tell us?"

Benefits

Gabriela de la Mora de la Mora, a researcher in the Program of Socio-Environmental Studies at CRIM, highlighted that beyond solving a local socio-environmental problem, the new guidelines can create new jobs and alternatives, incorporate fishing and other types of businesses, and have favorable economic impacts, particularly for the tourism sector.

The expert in environmental governance stated that it is important to have ongoing review to ensure these markets are not constituted in a way that privileges private interests, as the risks of privatization or business ventures taking precedence over socio-environmental benefits to the challenge facing the region always exist.

During the remotely held meeting, De la Mora de la Mora deemed it essential to review regional economic development models, which in some ways remain extractivist and centered on the production of wealth, where social and environmental adaptation are negatively affected.