- Turning the Tide: Sustainable practices and economic opportunities for Sargassum in the Caribbean Basin
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Since 2011, countries within the Wider Caribbean Basin have wrestled with the growing inundations of sargassum on their coasts. This phenomenon has a substantial economic impact in sectors like tourism and fisheries, and poses public health risks.
Prime Minister of Grenada Dickon Mitchell and other ministers of the government of Grenada, Felix Fernandez-Shaw, Director, European Commission, Directorate-General for International Partnerships, Dr Didacus Jules, director-general, Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), on October 1-2, 2024, at the Radisson Grenada Beach Resort will feature the 2nd EU-Caribbean global gateway conference on sargassum.
This event will host over 250 participants to drive dialogue, action and investment in Sargassum valorisation and the development of value chains at scale to meet the magnitude of the challenge. The conference will generate a comprehensive conversation to understand the building blocks of a sustainable value chain: Research and Innovation, Enabling Environment and Transformation. The event will explore the latest on research, monitoring and forecasting, prevention and containment, collection and harvesting, treatment, valorization and/or use, and disposal of sargassum biomass.
The meeting will bring together ministers and public authorities from Caribbean and Latin American countries and European Overseas Countries and Territories and Outermost Regions, as well as the private sector financing institutions, scientific community, and non/governmental organizations. It will connect the different actors to identify opportunities for investments and partnerships to support public initiative and commercial operations targeting the different stages of a Sargassum value chain.
This conference is an initiative under Global Gateway, the European Union’s strategy to boost investments that generate smart, clean and secure value chains across the world.
