Although the case of Marine Mucilage is very specific it can benefit from some of the evolution of global good practices in working on these kinds of issues (e.g. sargassam and other algal blooms, invasive plants such as water hyacinth, water quality management, etc.).

Massive strandings of pelagic sargassum have intermittently washed ashore the coastlines of the Caribbean, northern and central America, West Africa (Sierra Leone to the Gulf of Guinea) and the West Indies since 2011. There are various ways that the detection and clean-up of Sargassum is being carried out; Several regional sargassum warning systems, such as the Sargassum Early Advisory system and the Sargassum Watch System have been developed in the past few years based on satellite imagery, to gain, prior knowledge of sargassum occurrence, magnitude and movement, local partnerships with key stakeholders with the necessary resources to handle clean up, national and regional partnerships to share best practices and source funds.

Sargassum in the Caribbean

Controlling water hyacinth in Lake Victoria, Kenya

Though native to the Amazon basin, human activity has introduced the water hyacinth to Lake Victoria, where it has become a major plant species in the lake and claimed to have negatively affected local ecosystems. It is also wind-blown and can choke up ports such as Kisumu and impact fisheries and navigation. Unfortunately, some fishermen also get caught in drifting masses of hyacinth and have even reported to die of starvation on their entangled boats. Many management options were considered for weed control such as physical, biological, mechanical, and chemical. Biological methods using weevils and mites have been successfully demonstrated in the lake as part of a World Bank financed series of projects on Lake Victoria Environment Management, along with prototype approaches for using satellite earth observation for early alerts and beach management units to promote awareness and distributed hyacinth control, as well as mechanical extractors for specific locations such as water intake points and fish landing sites.