After having selected it for aquaria from among numerous imported algal species, after having dumped it into the sea, humans fostered its dissemination in nature. Yacht anchors and fishing gear have carried it from anchorage to anchorage and from harbor to harbor, sometimes over great distances. The Italian and Spanish coasts were reached by 1992, that of Croatia by 1995. By late 1997, ninety-nine invaded sites totaling more than 4,600 hectares have been inventoried. For, contrary to what its media nickname might suggest, this prolific alga is primarily an ecological threat.
All relevant research indicates an unlimited spread.
Its control is more difficult every year, and its eradication, envisaged at the beginning of the invasion, can now be classed only as a utopian dream. The introduction of this dangerous alga therefore threatens to initiate a profound disruption of the coastal Mediterranean environment. When the first scientific publications confirmed the threat, the alga was, contrary to any reasonable expectation, defended by other scientists who tried to argue that its appearance was a natural event. This was the beginning of a long, fantastic polemic. This is far from the Polish forests devastated by acid rain, far from the Aral Sea dried up by diverting water, far from the third world where overpopulation engenders overexploitation of natural resources.