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News Articles: seaweed

Thangamma, about 80 years old, dives in to gather seaweed.

'It's not for the faint-hearted' — the story of India's intrepid women seaweed divers

In goggles and flipflops, they dive to harvest seaweed. It's risky work. They'll earn $3 to $6 a day. Now climate change and environmental rules make it harder to pursue the traditional profession.

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By:
  • Kamala Thiagarajan
A tractor plows seaweed that washed ashore into the beach sand on March 16, 2023 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Reports indicate that this summer, a huge mass of sargassum seaweed that has formed in the Atlantic Ocean is possibly headed for the Florida coastlines and shores.

Giant blobs of seaweed are hitting Florida. That's when the real problem begins

From Montego Bay to Miami, sargassum is leaving stinky brown carpets over what was once prime tourist sand. But whether it gets ignored or removed, it comes with high health and environmental risks.

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By:
  • Emily Olson
People remove Sargassum in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, in April, 2022. Researchers expect this year will bring another massive bloom, choking local ecosystems and tourism economies.

Meet the sargassum belt, a 5,000-mile-long snake of seaweed circling Florida

Since 2011, a fleet of seaweed patches double the size of the contiguous U.S. has cycled from West Africa to Florida, threatening beaches from Martinique to Miami. This year, it could grow bigger.

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By:
  • Emily Olson
Seaweed covers the Atlantic shore in Frigate Bay, St. Kitts and Nevis, on Wednesday. A record amount of seaweed is smothering Caribbean coasts from Puerto Rico to Barbados.

A record amount of seaweed is choking shores in the Caribbean

Seaweed is smothering Caribbean coasts from Puerto Rico to Barbados as tons of brown algae kill wildlife, choke the tourism industry and release toxic gases.

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By:
  • The Associated Press