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Nature Forum 2005 concluded |
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March 16, 2005. The Nature Forum 2005 was held in Bonaire from February 27 till March 2, 2005. It brought together more than forty experts in the field of nature conservation. Representatives of government agencies and non-governmental organizations and specialists involved in nature conservation participated in the Forum, to discuss the current status, the latest developments in the field, and the future of nature conservation in the six islands. Much attention was given to the recently established Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA). This inter-island cooperative will help to strengthen nature conservation and position Dutch Caribbean biodiversity internationally and in the Netherlands, emphasizing that the Dutch Caribbean has the richest biodiversity of the Kingdom. The Dutch National Postal Code Lottery was thanked for its support for these developments.
During the Forum work started on an in-depth information collection system intended to capture baseline data of the islands' Parks and to provide a way to quantify and graphically depict the success of the management of those parks. The participants agreed that this work would be continued after the Forum in order to develop and finalize this important tool that will capture the degree of success of active management of protected areas Part of the Nature Forum focused on the Netherlands Antilles Coral Reef Initiative (NACRI) dealing specifically with coral reefs. Recent findings suggest that the reefs of the Netherlands Antilles are very important to the region because of their high degree of genetic diversity and their relative health compared to most of the rest of the Caribbean, considering the high settlement rates of juvenile corals, and indications of return of Diadema sea urchins around Bonaire. The participants agreed that it was important to monitor and promote such positive aspects, in addition to general long term monitoring of trends. A coordinated monitoring program for all the islands has recently started.
In the final Declaration of the Forum the participants call upon the island governments, donors and international organizations to give greater priority to nature conservation in the Dutch Caribbean. Island governments are urged to put management and policy tools into place to guide development decisions of the island governments, and to integrate nature conservation into spatial planning, environmental and social development policies in a meaningful way. The participants further point out the need for sustainable development as a long term strategy for poverty alleviation, and stress that to that end nature must be recognized as the islands’ main capital.
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