Eco-News
Awesome Eco-Alliance by Susan Campbell
For the love of the land and the song of the sea… the new Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance is out to preserve today’s natural treasures for tomorrow’s generations to enjoy.
Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, St. Eustatius (Statia) and St. Maarten each have their own non-profit, nongovernmental environmental organizations that work tirelessly to promote nature conservation and education. Though their spirits are strong, unfortunately, the numbers within each organization are often too few – and the challenges too many. They depend heavily on volunteers, private donations, corporate sponsorship and global conservation organizations to enable them to continue to safeguard their environments. They also depend on each other to swap best practices, innovations, know-how, data, research and techniques. Though the diversity of their ecosystems ranges from semidesert to lush tropical rainforest, coral reefs, sea grass beds and mangroves, the one thing 108 Nights
they all have in common is that these precious resources could soon become endangered. To achieve their common objectives each group agreed that it made sense to band together and form an umbrella organization to act as a central repository for everything environmental. After a joint appeal to the Dutch Government, funding was obtained from the Dutch Postcode Lottery to launch an awesome eco-coalition. The result: the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA) whose mission is to: “Safeguard the biodiversity and promote the sustainable management of the natural resources of the islands of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, both on land and in the water, for the benefit of present and future generations, by supporting and assisting the protected Left photo by Pierre Arsenault. Other photos by Michael DeFreitas