Riviera Maya, Q.R. — The Secretariat of the Navy says already this year, over 76,000 tons of sargassum has been removed from the coast. The staggering figure, they say, is seaweed collected both at sea and on land.
The Secretaría de Marina reported within the framework of the 2025 Sargassum Response Strategy on the coast of Quintana Roo, efforts continue to mitigate the negative effects of this seaweed.
To implement this strategy, operations are strategically divided into the Northern Zone of Isla Mujeres, Cancun and Puerto Morelos, the Central Zone which includes Playa del Carmen, Puerto Aventuras and Tulum and the Southern Zone of Punta Allen, Mahahual and Chetumal.
The federal agency says they have achieved the collection of sargassum along the coast of Quintana Roo through the deployment of naval personnel, specialized machinery and various resources as part of coastal containment and ongoing extraction via sea and land.
This includes one ocean sargassum vessel which is the main means of collection by sea. It also includes 11 coastal sargassum vessels, two aquamarine sargaceras, two barges, 22 smaller support vessels and 9,630 meters of containment barriers.
For manpower, approximately 200 naval elements distributed in different parts of the state remain responsible for sargassum collection, which has, to date, exceeded 14,000 tons by them alone.
“This year, approximately 8,284.34 tons of algae has been collected at sea and 6,502.72 tons on land representing a total of approximately 14,787.06 tons collected by the Secretariat,” they reported.
This contributes to the state’s joint scheme which has removed more than 76,821.69 tons of sargassum already in 2025. This reflects that the Navy’s collection efforts have tripled this year compared to 2024 as part of a joint work plan.
On August 26, the Secretaría de Marina attended the Latin American and Caribbean ministerial meeting for the implementation of regional climate action A Sea of Opportunities: Uniting the Greater Caribbean against Sargassum.
The meeting was organized by the Government of Mexico and the European Union within the framework of the Global Gateway initiative as a joint effort to strengthen bi-regional cooperation and lay the foundations for a regional action plan on sargassum.
The action plan includes the guiding detection, monitoring, collection, stockpiling, valorization and use under a circular economy and shared resilience approach.
These actions have a positive impact on preserving the healthy state and productivity of the marine environment and recreational and commercial navigation with smaller vessels, which are part of nautical tourism, and marine natural resources over which Mexico exercises sovereignty or sovereign rights.
