The Costa del Sol is appealing for help to deal with invasive seaweed

Costa del Sol councils face the upcoming tourist season once again, but this time the presence of invasive seaweed on the shores of the popular tourist destination is causing problems.

The Asiatic species of algae, Rugulopterix okamurae is listed in the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenges’ “Spanish catalogue of exotic invasive spaces”. 

The seaweed has accrued significant costs necessary for its removal and has caused damage to the aesthetics of the tourist destination, for which the town council are appealing for help to solve the problem, as reported by malagahoy.es

The first to voice alarm about this problem was the town council of Estepona, a locality that has collected 20 tonnes of algae a day on it’s shores.For this reason, the town council has had to designate an additional portion of their economic budget to afford the labour necessary to remove and treat the algae. It has been predicted that it could cost over 1 million euros to effectively remove the seaweed from Estepona’s shores, according to the town mayor Jose Maria Garcia Urbano.

The local administration is carrying out removal efforts throughout the whole year, from Monday to Sunday 11:30pm – 10:00am, when the beaches are unpopulated by sunbathers, in order to try and fix the problem before the majority of tourists arrive in the summer months. 

Multiple town councils have requested a government solution to the problem in order to collect and treat the algae, as they have insufficient resources to deal with the problem themselves. Administrations have also lamented the effect the invasive seaweed has had on the tourist sector, for which the Costa del Sol is famed. 

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