By Sarah Morland

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -The Dominican Republic’s Foreign Minister Roberto Alvarez and top Mexican officials have proposed creating a bilateral roundtable to address the environmental impacts of sargassum seaweed on the countries’ Caribbean coastlines, his office said on Wednesday.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

Hotel workers are struggling to keep beaches clean as mountains of pungent, decomposing sargassum accumulate on Caribbean coasts, releasing irritant gases, smothering marine ecosystems and hitting occupancy rates at seaside resorts.

CONTEXT

Atlantic sargassum blooms, a type of algae, have dramatically increased over the past decade, fueled by nutrient pollution exacerbated by deforestation, warmer ocean temperatures and changes in sea currents pushing the spread westwards i

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