Fishermen on the country’s east coast are appealing to Government agencies to clean up tonnes of sargassum (seaweed) on the shoreline, as they say it is killing their livelihood.
The fishermen also say their catches have been significantly reduced due to the large amounts of sargassum and are asking for some kind of compensation from the Government.
However, chairman of the Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Corporation, Hazaree Ramdeen, says the corporation has been cleaning the beaches for the past two months and it was decided on Wednesday to amp up cleaning activities.
The T&T Guardian visited several beaches along the East coast to see the effects of the seaweed first-hand and speak to the fishermen.
Yusef Ali, who has been a land seine fisherman for most of his life, says his catch has been reduced to almost nothing in the past few months.
Ali lives a stone’s throw away from the shoreline in Plaisance, Mayaro, and has spent most of the 63 years in the ocean.
“Right now the people making their living out of land seine fishing are suffering and the sad part is no one is helping us. This morning none of the land seine fishermen went out to sea,” said Ali.
One boat owner, Selwyn Bedassie, said he took his crew out last night to fish as this week was peak time for king fish catches but they came back in with only three fishes.