The 2025 sargassum season was the worst on record for Akumal Norte. Massive, rotting sargassum berms made life unpleasant for residents on Half Moon Bay, drove tourism to its lowest level in years, and blocked turtles from nesting. The berms also contributed to beach erosion by forcing all the energy of the waves onto the base of the sargassum wall where they dug out the sand, and by blocking waves from washing farther up the beach to replenish sand as they normally would.

Information Sessions

Vecinos responded to the crisis by organizing a series of information sessions attended by residents in person and by Zoom. Two commercial vendors and non-profit EcoProtección Akumal (EPA), a group created by Akumal Norte owners, presented their capabilities and gave community members the opportunity to discuss them both with the providers and among themselves. All the Zoom sessions were recorded, summarized with AI tools, and posted on the Vecinos website at this link. 

2026 Mitigation Solution

Following these meetings, the Vecinos Sargassum Committee voted to recommend EPA's proposed solution for 2026, which includes deployment of an offshore sargassum deflection barrier and onshore clean-up using ATVs and custom-designed trailers. EPA successfully secured pledges for the entire $210,000 USD required from nearly 90 different community donors and has collected the 30% of that total required to acquire an ATV and launch the project. Details of the EPA plan for 2026 can be found at this link. 

The EPA project team met with members of the community at Baransu Sushi on November 6 to answer questions and describe the progress on next year’s project, as well as the potential involvement of a Dutch company called Oceanus which will be conducting tests in Half Moon Bay to analyze the potential for future beach and reef reclamation projects. Additional information sessions are scheduled tentatively for December 9 and January 7 at locations to be determined.

2025 Beach Cleanup

But the EPA solution applies only to 2026. To address the sargassum already on the beach in 2025, Vecinos launched a fundraising campaign to allow it to hire trucks and workers to clean the beach, and to support a crew of workers that ZOFEMAT provided in October (at no cost to us) with trucks, food, drink, and a legal dumping site for the sargassum they collected. Community response was fantastic, with 65 donors contributing over $288,000 MX. About half of that amount remains unspent and donors will be contacted to ask if they would like those funds to carried over to fund future Vecinos beach cleaning efforts, converted to a general donation to Vecinos, or refunded to them.

Community Action Gets Results

Our community's response to this emergency has shown what we are capable of when we come together to reach a common goal. Owners left past disputes in the past and focused on preserving and protecting the future of Half Moon Bay and the community we all love.