Cleaning operations have taken place in Porto Moniz and Porto Santo.
This seaweed, it’s a horrible problem, and still along the south coast you see huge patches of it even in Porto Santo today the beach is full of the stuff.
The Port Administration of the Autonomous Region of Madeira (APRAM) has already collected 35 cubic meters of sargassum collected in Porto Santo and Porto Moniz.
Again, this afternoon, a team from the company, with the collaboration of SANAS and Porto Moniz City Council, fought the sargassum that invaded the water next to the Porto Moniz pier. Since March 2nd, APRAM has already collected around 15 m3 of sargassum in this shelter port during cleaning operations.
Also on the island of Porto Santo, between the period of January 8th and March 13th, APRAM has already removed a total of 20 m3 of sargassum and even in Funchal a residual volume of 3 m3 was collected, in the Cais de Recreio do Port of Funchal.
Since August last year, conservators at the Funchal Natural History Museum have been recording “the atypical presence of large quantities of pelagic sargassum in the waters of Madeira”. an investigation that has already led to the writing of an article for a scientific journal.
Sargassum is a brown algae that floats and grows rapidly. Within the sea, sargassum feeds and shelters several marine species, but when it reaches the coast in large quantities, it becomes a problem.