'Catastrophe': Invasive Seaweed Overwhelming Spanish Beaches

Thousands of tonnes of an invasive seaweed from south-east Asia are piling up on beaches of the Strait of Gibraltar and Spain's southern coast in what environmentalists say is a threat to regional biodiversity.

- Stephen Burgen

Since May, Cadiz's local authority has removed 1,200 tonnes of the alga Rugulopteryx okamurae from La Caleta, the city's most popular beach, including 78 tonnes in a single day.

"We're completely overwhelmed. This is an environmental catastrophe," said José Carlos Teruel, responsible for Cadiz city council's beaches. "Whenever the wind is westerly, we know we're in for another wave of seaweed."

As with many invasive marine species, the alga is thought to arrive in the ballast tanks of ships which pass through the Suez Canal and discharge their tanks in the Mediterranean.

In little more than a decade it has colonised the Gibraltar Strait, much of Spain's southern coast, the Canary Islands, the Azores, the Cantabrian Sea and the Basque Country.