[Coral-List] Sargassum

[MelissaE Keyes]

Hello, and thanks for writing 
If you would look only at the list of videos YouTube has, you’d see the mind boggling quantities of seaweed smothering the coast. Bulldozers and backhoes could make only a dent. 
And the rotting fumes are poisonous and make people sick 
We’re in a crazy world now.  I just read there’s a possibility of the big bankers shutting down commerce for seventeen days.  We are living in paradise now compared to what that would be like!
Ah well, be thankful and enjoy the little things.  

Cheers,
Melissa 


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On Friday, July 2, 2021, 5:24 AM, Austin Bowden-Kerby <abowdenkerby at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Melissa,  
I had our local Sargassum polycystum analyzed here in Fiji a few years back and it was 8% potassium wet weight, and also very good source of N and P, as well as packed with trace nutrients like boron, copper and iron, etc that are otherwise hard to come by.  It makes an ideal organic fertilizer and is of high value.  While it is not often so badly out of control here, as unicorn and orange tailed surgeonfish love to eat it, it does wash up in smaller drifts seasonally. I find it best to harvest it fresh before it begins to fall apart, and to rinse it off with fresh water, before throwing it immediately into bananas, around coconut trees, and onto cassava and sweet potato plantations etc, where it does an amazing job at providing time-released nutrients.  Try it! 
We are teaching local farmers, who can often not afford commercial fertilizers anyway, to take advantage of what nature provides and as a way of cleaning the beaches, as rotting sargassum seems to be ideal habitat for breeding sandflies. 
Stay safe, as the delta COVID variant is an entirely different kettle of fish.  Fiji was COVID free for a full year, but this variant managed to jump out of quarantine and past two layers of partially vaccinated quarantine staff, and we now have a raging epidemic.  >400 new cases per day and no commercial flights in or out of the country.  I have a team of 5 volunteers stuck now on a remote island site for the past ten weeks, with no end in sight!   Austin 
Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD 
Corals for ConservationSustainable Environmental Livelihoods for the Future
P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islandshttps://www.corals4conservation.org   https://www.facebook.com/C4Conservation 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009j6wb TEDx talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PRLJ8zDm0U
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/  

Teitei Livelihoods Centre
Km 20 Sigatoka Valley Road, Fiji Islands
(679) 938-6437 http:/www.teiteifiji.org  
http://permacultureglobal.com/projects/1759-sustainable-environmental-livelihoods-farm-Fijihttps://www.facebook.com/teiteifarmstay https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/happy-chickens-for-food-security-and-environment-1/ 




On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 8:52 PM MelissaE Keyes via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

Hello, Listers
Sorry I didn’t provide a hot link yesterday.  But going to YouTube and searching sargassum st Croix, I found several videos.  It’s two meters deep on a lot of beaches.  Same sort of videos from Cancun and Yucatán, except deeper.  
No mention in any news that I’ve seen.  Doesn’t seem to be any way to fight the stuff, getting to be more and more every year 
Cheers 
Melissa E Keyes.  


Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
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