Officials, hoteliers to fight seaweed jointly

Santo Domingo.- The Environment and Tourism ministries, and the Dominican Republic Hotels and Tourism Association (Asonahores) on Wednesday agreed to counter the seaweed piling up on many of the country’s beaches, and which is normal in the Caribbean and a part of the US and Africa.

After a meeting at the Environment Ministry the minister of the Environment, Bautista Rojas, of Tourism Francisco Javier García, and Asonahores executive vice president Arturo Villanueva said the work to fight the seaweed include current and future actions to avert impact on the country’s ecosystems.

In a statement, the officials and the hotelier said the current rise in seaweed is cyclical and also impacts Cuba, Mexico, Barbados and other Caribbean islands.

They said among the actions figure more crews to collect weed by hand daily, protect the dunes near the beaches, prevent the loss of sand, and other negative impacts, as well as the location of areas to bury it beyond the high-water mark.