Fieldtrips, meetings and a symposium in Barbados, March 2023

On Saturday 4 March, four SARTRAC project members arrived in Barbados from north, east and west: Prof Robert (Bob) Marsh (University of Southampton, UK); Dr Winnie Sowah and Bernice Oppong (University of Ghana); Romario Anderson (Mona Geoinformatics Institute, Jamaica). Based just outside the historic Garrison area of Bridgetown and hosted by colleagues from the Centre…

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Exchanging sargassum knowledge in the Western Region of Ghana, January 2023

Written by Dr Sien van der Plank Welcome to the coast of the Ghanaian Western Region. Seemingly endless beaches of coconut and palm trees. A biodiverse tapestry of coastal, forest and freshwater ecosystems. A blend of cosmopolitan towns, gas terminals, farmland, tourist resorts, and smaller villages. In every locality, there is land to farm to…

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Sargassum is worsening the conditions of the poorest people in Ghana

This blog post is provided by Dr Victoria Dominguez Almela1 & Dr Philip-Neri Jayson-Quashigah2 and tells the story learned during the SARTRAC fieldtrip to the remote coastal areas of Sanzule, Beyin and Esiama, Ghana. Sargassum, a type of brown seaweed, has been invading coastal areas across the Atlantic since 2011 and has become a major…

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Barbados – first port of call for westbound Sargassum, and where we finally meet Project Partners after two long years!

From the University of Southampton, SARTRAC investigator Prof Robert (Bob) Marsh and PhD student Yanna Fidai visited the Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES) at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies, over 24-31 March 2022. The Cave Hill campus is located in the northern suburbs of Bridgetown in…

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New SARTRAC Paper Published

Thierry Tonon at York, Mona Webber at UWI Mona, and Bob Marsh from Southampton with the help of their research teams, have published research on Sargassum harvested around Jamaica in 2020. They found that Sargassum fluitans were dominant in summer, but morphotype abundance may be seasonal. Seaweeds from the south and the north of Jamaica…

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New SARTRAC Team Member

We are all very happy to announce the arrival of our new Senior Research Assistant, Victoria Dominguez Almela, based at the University of Southampton. Vicky is an ecologist with research interests covering the impacts of invasive species on biodiversity and people. She has been working since 2017 on better understanding biological invasions as part of…

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Webinar on Sargassum challenges and management in the Gulf of Guinea – Networking as key

By Winnie Sowah, University of Ghana A webinar on networking as the key to management of sargassum in the Gulf of Guinea was organised jointly by the Ghana SARTRAC team at the University of Ghana (UG) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Ghana on 2nd September 2021.  The Ghana SARTRAC team at UG, led…

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