Page 32 - bon-dia-aruba-20200801

a32 local
Saturday 1 auguSt 2020

‘Not taking nature into account

for future development plans

can cost islands millions’

WILLEMSTAD, CURACAO — Nature dollars’ worth of income if the coral
organizations are warning that the reefs were to disappear”, says Ver-
islands might experience greater meij. quences of climate change. “The
economic losses if attention is not Targeted discussions needed negative impact of the climate
paid to nature preservation and Nature organizations worried According to Bervoets, targeted crisis could be worse for the Carib-
climate change in the negotiations The Dutch Caribbean Nature Alli- discussions should be carried out bean islands than the corona crisis
with The Hague for the recovery of ance (DCNA), which supports the within the Kingdom to work towards and that is why retention of natural
Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maarten. management organizations of the the instruments needed for Aruba, resources should be a central point
protected nature reserves on all Curacao, and Sint Maarten to deal in the discussion about reforms on
The income that Curacao for ex- six islands in the Dutch Caribbean, with the countless environmental the islands”, according to Bervoets.
ample generates through (eco) implores the Kingdom of the Neth- issues which they are facing due Source: Caribisch Netwerk.
tourism and fisheries, directly and erlands to pay attention when it to climate change. “Amongst oth-
indirectly linked to nature activi- comes to making Aruba, Curacao, ers there should be support for im- Current discussion Aruba:
ties, accounts for between 21 and and Sint Maarten environmental- proved waste water treatment, or spearfishing
63 percent of the gross domestic and climate conscious during the the development of strategies to Currently there is a lot of discussion
product (GDP) of the island. discussions about liquidity support. protect nature reserves which are about the spearfishing on Aruba.
This is the reason according to “We’re following the discussion crucial to limiting the effects of cli- The Aruba Birdlife Conservation
Mark Vermeij, scientific director of between the governments within mate change”, Bervoets believes. (ABC) elaborates on the topic on
the Caribbean Research and Man- the Kingdom concerning liquidity social media. Spearfishing is illegal
agement of Biodiversity (CARMA- support to Aruba, Curacao, and Climate crisis worse than corona in Aruba since 2001 and illegal in
BI), that it is important to consider Sint Maarten closely and are very crisis most other countries around the
nature preservation when discuss- worried that no attention is being The interim director also empha- world. Nonetheless, spearfishing
ing the ‘landspaketten’ which the paid during these discussions to sizes that more attention should be has continued unhindered since
Netherlands set up in exchange for the environment, nature preserva- paid to support for the transition to 2001, mostly to feed Aruba's mas-
emergency lines of credit for Aru- tion, and climate permanency on a circular economy which would sive tourism industry (for example
ba, Curacao, and Sint Maarten. the islands”, says Tadzio Bervoet, ensure that the islands would be restaurants). Parrotfish and grou-
“Curacao would miss 400 million interim director of the network. better prepared for the conse- pers are often caught on Aruba,
even though they are species pro-
tected by local law. Parrotfish are
associated with healthy coral and
groupers are much endangered
with hardly large groupers (ready
to reproduce) left. Spearfishing
can destroy the surrounding cor-
als. There is a decline of healthy
coral reefs all around the world, in-
cluding Aruba. Corals in the ocean
function like forests. Without it life
gets really hard. In some countries
spearfishing is legal, but can only be
performed by registered, well edu-
cated, and well equipped people
while following laws and regula-
tions meant to stop the destructive
aspects. Illegal spearfishing and
selling of protected Aruba spe-
cies has been going on for years.
Unregulated sales even occur via
Facebook. ABC is conducting a
petition to ask the Government of
Aruba not to legalize spearfishing.
For more information on this sub-
ject check out Aruba Birdlife Con-
servation on Facebook.q