Barbados’ Blueprint for Climate Resilience

With a palm-sized notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other, Katrina Chapman surveys a stretch of beach near Bridgetown, Barbados and looks out to the calm, turquoise waters of Pile Bay.  But she’s not just admiring the view.

Chapman, the manager of the Pile Bay Fish Landing facility, is tracking the influx of sargassum—ropy, brown seaweed that’s smothering coral reefs, snarling the nets of fisherfolk whose income depends on their daily catch, and negatively impacting the landings of flying fish, Barbados’ national dish.  Warming waters and other factors are speeding sargassum’s growth throughout the Caribbean, and Chapman, a third-generation Barbadian fisherwoman, has never seen anything like the influx now rotting on beaches.  She’s worried, she admits.