Rainforest destruction heats up algae growth in the ocean

Flows - everything is interlinked!

Whether somewhere in Germany, Mexico or Brazil, we can do something to make this world a better place!

The Rio Negro and the Amazon meet at Manaus in Brazil. The Amazon is surrounded by rainforests, the largest in the world. They store carbon, indispensable in the climate crisis. They are home to at least 10% of the world's biodiversity.



The forest is cut down, burned and cleared to be used for agriculture, livestock breeding and grazing. The topsoil is washed away by the fields, nutrients reach the Amazon. The current flows 6,400 km to the ocean, draining half the continent into the Atlantic.



The nutrient load causes algae growth to explode in the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean. An invasion of the Sargassum algae, the algae belt, stretches over more than 8,000 kilometres.



Decomposing Sargassum algae consume oxygen in the sea and cause death zones. Life in the sea suffers as a result. Sargassum algae are also washed up on the beaches of Mexico and cover the nesting sites of turtles, which can no longer lay eggs there. No eggs, no baby turtles.

Rotting algae release toxins and nutrients. This destroys coral reefs and kills the sea grass. The effects of deforestation are felt over thousands of kilometres from the Amazon to the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico.

Eu­troph­ic­a­tion through de­for­est­a­tion is a prob­lem little looked after on a global scale. We now see that this is an­other con­sequence of the rapid global change and we have no time left to act.

Sustainable use of algae biomass in the Caribbean

Once the mil­lion tons of sar­gas­sum reach the shores deal­ing with the prob­lem gets even more com­plic­ated. In the same way as new in­nov­at­ive ways of clean­ing up the plastic pol­lu­tion in the oceans are in­ven­ted we need to ad­dress the vast amount of al­gae. And there might be a chance that we can even use them as a re­new­able source for en­ergy, bio­chem­ic­als etc. This seems much bet­ter then grow­ing kelp in crit­ical hab­it­ats to make bio­fuel.

The implementation of this approach will still require some research and experimentation, for which we will use the donations.