{"id":96293,"date":"2025-07-27T08:46:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T08:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/96293\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T08:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T08:46:14","slug":"thousands-of-tons-of-invasive-seaweed-overwhelming-spanish-beaches-invasive-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/96293\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of tons of invasive seaweed \u2018overwhelming\u2019 Spanish beaches | Invasive species"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of tonnes of an aggressive invasive seaweed from south-east Asia are piling up on the beaches of the strait of Gibraltar<\/a> and Spain\u2019s southern coast in what local environmentalists say is a major threat to the region\u2019s biodiversity.<\/p>\n

Since May, the local authority in C\u00e1diz has removed 1,200 tonnes of the alga Rugulopteryx okamurae from La Caleta, the city\u2019s most popular beach, including 78 tonnes in a single day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re completely overwhelmed. This is an environmental catastrophe,\u201d said Jos\u00e9 Carlos Teruel, responsible for C\u00e1diz city council\u2019s beaches. \u201cWhenever the wind is westerly, we know we\u2019re in for another wave of seaweed.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with many other invasive marine species, the alga is thought to arrive in the ballast tanks of ships which pass through the Suez canal and then discharge their tanks in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

In little more than a decade the species has colonised the strait of Gibraltar, much of Spain\u2019s southern coast, the Canary Islands, the Azores, and, farther north, the Cantabrian sea and the Basque Country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was first spotted 10 years ago in Ceuta, Spain\u2019s north African enclave, by a researcher from M\u00e1laga university, but the authorities are always too slow to react,\u201d said Juan Jos\u00e9 Vergara, a professor of biology at the University of C\u00e1diz.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first phase of an invasion such as this it can be controlled. It\u2019s like catching cancer early on before it spreads,\u201d Vergara said, adding that what washes ashore is a fraction of what is underwater.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now the scale of it makes it impossible to control. In other seaweed invasions we\u2019ve seen things revert to normal after a period of 10-15 years but many scientists say they\u2019ve never seen an invasion on this scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

The seaweed is having a major impact on the local economy, firstly on tourism in C\u00e1diz and nearby Tarifa, a town popular with windsurfers, and on fishing because it traps fishers\u2019 nets and lines and also sucks oxygen out of the water. Then there\u2019s the cost to the taxpayer of disposing of it.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most worrying is its impact on biodiversity. On the beach at La Caleta, the seaweed has driven out many indigenous plants. It is unclear whether the damage is temporary or irreversible.<\/p>\n

The alga attaches itself to rocks and other surfaces and is also free-floating, wiping out native species of seaweed. It has no predators in the region and its capacity to reproduce both sexually and asexually and to absorb toxins makes it virtually impossible to eradicate, experts say.<\/p>\n

At present the seaweed is dumped in landfill sites. Vergara said a local business that recycles seaweed into drinks containers or to use as fuel and fertiliser has sought permission to use Rulopteryx okamuraeas as a biomass to produce energy.<\/p>\n

However, Spain\u2019s law on invasive species prohibits their commercial exploitation unless they pose a threat to health and safety or to further their eradication, a caveat that would seem to apply to Rulopteryx okamuraeas.<\/p>\n

This week the government in Andaluc\u00eda launched a four-part plan to confront the crisis based on research, monitoring and education, and which includes options for recycling the seaweed.<\/p>\n

To use it as biomass the regional government will have to negotiate with Spain\u2019s environment ministry but Vergara said that even if an agreement is reached, it can only be part of the solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an interesting idea but I doubt it will be able to eradicate or even significantly diminish the intensity of the invasion when hundreds of thousands of tonnes can wash up on a single beach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of tonnes of an aggressive invasive seaweed from south-east Asia are piling up on the beaches of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":96294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-96293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114924328352033340","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}