Business View caribbean - Aug 2023

8 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 10, ISSUE 8 biggest environmental threat,” Irfan said. “The scale of the damage from the ongoing oceanic heat wave isn’t yet clear, but events like this in the past have proven devastating for coastal economies and marine wildlife.” One of the major challenges experts are seeing right now is the stony coral tissue loss disease, an infection on corals that is triggered by the change in water temperature. If left unchecked, it can cause “complete colony mortality in a matter of weeks” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Coral loss may disrupt fishing and also affect the tourism sector of tiny islands like Dominica, which makes up 25 percent of its economy. There is also the problem with sargassum, a type of algae that is growing in massive blooms in the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean that is toxic and harmful as it rots. Jamaica has been reported to come up with a way to make use of the harvested algae and turn in into something more useful.