Sargasso Sea Facts - Convention on Biological Diversity

T PuchnerIt is an important resourceboth locally and globally, worth manymillions of dollars a year because of itsfisheries, the direct and indirect benefitsof the coral reefs surrounding Bermuda,and tourism. Despite this the revenuesderived from the <strong>Sargasso</strong> <strong>Sea</strong> are muchlower than they might be because of theabsence of appropriate management.A cross road in the Atlantic Ocean,it is an area that many species including whales,turtles, and tuna migrate through, whilst in deepwater below the Sargassum the endangered Europeanand American eels migrate here from the coasts ofEurope, Canada and the USA to spawn. The <strong>Sargasso</strong><strong>Sea</strong> is their only known spawning area. Other deepmigrants include Porbeagle Sharks—which migratefrom the temperate eastern Atlantic to give birthto their young here, and Swordfish migrate intothe area where they live by day at depths of several100 m and swim up to the surface at night to feed.A MurchOf vital importance toglobal scale processesof oxygen production and carbonsequestration due to a combinationof abundant tiny photosyntheticbacteria, deep sunlit waters andphysical mixing processes. The<strong>Sargasso</strong> <strong>Sea</strong> is conventionallyregarded as being oligotrophic; butthe annual net primary productionis three times higher than in theBarents <strong>Sea</strong>.T WardmanA critical area for oceanresearch and monitoring,the <strong>Sargasso</strong> <strong>Sea</strong> has been a focus forocean science since the voyage of HMSChallenger in the 1870s. It is the siteof Beebe’s first bathyscape dives, thesea where variability in deep oceancurrents was found, where the mostabundant photosynthetic organism onearth was discovered, and it is the siteof the world’s longest ocean time seriesof measurements which together giveus so much vital information aboutglobal climate change.A place of legend so a culturally importantpart of the ocean. First described by Columbus whofeared his ships would be trapped by mats of floatinggolden algae, named Sargassum possibly because itsair bladders reminded Portuguese sailors of bunchesof grapes. Sailors feared being becalmed in the calmseas—the doldrums, and later the Bermuda triangleachieved notoriety because ships and aeroplanes weresupposedly lost here. Bermuda itself has a rich maritimehistory and its settlement after the wreck of the <strong>Sea</strong>Venture (on its way to Virginia) in 1609 was reputedlythe inspiration for Shakespeare’s The Tempest.It is threatened by humanactivities including over-fishingand collateral damage from fishingincluding entanglement in gearand unwanted by-catch; by shiptraffic creating noise in the waterand risks of collision; by pollutionfrom both land and ships; byharvesting of Sargassum; and byfuture deep-sea mining.