All because of a burger
Our story begins with a burger. The origins of our world starts with the fast food industry acquiring increasing amounts of Amazon forest lands in order to do 'soya farming'. 70 to 90 percent of the world's soya production is used as animal feed.
Through soya farming, the industry is able to sustainable feed livestock, so they can then produce large amounts of meat related products such as beef patties and chicken nuggets.
Deforestation in the Amazon remains a serious issue. At present, 24-25 million hectares of rainforest lands have fallen and become devoted to soya farming. Many believe that the problem stops there, but there is more to the story than it may seem.
Marine biologists in the Caribbean believe that due to deforestation, we are seeing a serious change in the main Atlantic Ocean currents known as ocean drivers.
Usually, these ocean drivers secure large amounts of seaweed and algae in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean known as the Sargasso Sea.
Unfortunately, as the Amazon becomes deforested, it causes the ocean currents to weaken and instead of being contained in the Sargasso Sea, it ends up on the shores of many islands in the Caribbean.
For almost a decade, sargassum seaweed has devastated the east coast of Antigua and Barbuda. It has created dead zones that have killed fish, coral reefs, and shifted the way tourism functions on these islands.
We have constantly heard the conversation that seaweed is 'devastating', 'a serious issue', and 'destroying the very fibre of the island's existence'.
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