Barbados will become the first Caribbean country to benefit from deep-sea research that could bring solutions to sargassum inundation challenges by sinking the seaweed to the bottom of the ocean floor.
The island is bracing for another influx of sargassum from as early as January 1 or February next year.
Scientists from the United Kingdom’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC), in collaboration with Seafields Integrated Environment Solutions, and the Cave Hill campus of The University of the West Indies (UWI), have embarked on a project to understand the potential effects of using seaweed to store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The project is co-funded by the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and is valued at GBP100,000.
Speaking during a press conference onboard the research vessel, RSS James Cook, director of the Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU), Dr Leo Brewster, described the work as being “transformative for the island.”
“This project, in its own self, charts a new way forward globally, and it sets Barbados as being an island state that can actually look at using its strategic location within the ocean as a prototype testing centre for different avenues of marine research. This is something that has not been done before in Barbados,” he said.
“My hope is to be able to come to this House for 2025, and to get money to buy those properties so we don’t have to rent them so that they can be part of the government’s housing stock to house permanently the Magistrate’s Court,” he stated.
The attorney general added that the original home of the High Court, the Sir Lee Llewellyn Moore Judicial and Legal Services Complex at East Independence Square Street, is undergoing significant rehabilitation work and will resume functioning when completed.
“My goal, Madam Speaker, is to bring the High Court back to where it should be at the Sir Lee Llewellyn Moore Judicial and Legal Services building – the historic location of our High Court,” AG Wilkin noted.
The attorney-general thanked his permanent secretary, Diana Francis, and the staff for their hard work in facilitating the temporary relocation of the court.
