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DCNA – Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance

HOLLAND PLEDGES 10 MILLION EURO TO DUTCH CARIBBEAN NATURE ALLIANCE - 23/02/2006

A Euro 10 million step toward safety for the natural world in the Dutch Caribbean

Some of our most endangered wildlife and habitats are one step closer to safety today (thurs) following the announcement of a Euro 10 million grant for nature conservation in the Dutch Caribbean.

The money from the Dutch government will go to the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance, an umbrella organisation formed last year to give a united voice to conservationists on the six islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, St Eustatius and St Maarten.

‘Our coral reefs, mangroves and tropical forests contain the richest biodiversity in the Kingdom of the Netherlands,’ says Kalli De Meyer, the DCNA’s executive director.

‘In the past, our efforts to safeguard these amazing habitats have been severely hampered by a lack of dependable funding.

‘We are overjoyed that the Dutch Government have decided to step in with financial support which we desperately need. This demonstrates the spirit of unity and support which lies at the heart of the DCNA and which we hope to foster both between the islands in the coming years.’

Alex Pechtold, Minister of Interior Affairs and Kingdom Relations, formally announced the approval of the grant at a meeting with Kalli and colleagues from DCNA’s partner organisation in the Netherlands, the IUCN, on today (Thursday.)

The funds, which will be released over a ten-year period, will be used to strengthen and improve the capacity of the management organisations of the marine and land parks on each island.

Just as importantly, the Euro 10 million cash injection will help to create a Conservation Trust Fund, a ‘pot’ of capital that will eventually generate enough interest to cover the operational running costs of all the parks in the Dutch Caribbean.

The new grant is another boost for DCNA that was set up in February 2005 after the Dutch Postcode Lottery agreed to supply Euro 1.9 million in grant funding.

The organisation has now turned its attentions to fundraising, securing long-term financing and building management capacity in all the parks on the six islands.

Letitia Buth, director of the Central Government Department of Nature and the Environment, feels those new areas of focus will help DCNA to realise its long-term aim of safeguarding biodiversity and promoting sustainable management.

‘Well managed parks are the cornerstone of nature policy,’ says Letitia. ‘But good management is hard to achieve when our parks were plagued by financial instability and budget deficits as they have been in the past.

‘We are pleased that Minister Pechtold realises the urgent need for long term investment in nature conservation in our islands.’

PARKS JOIN FORCES TO SAFEGUARD AND STRENGHTEN NATURE CONSERVATION
Willemstad, June 18, 2004.

download full report of the meeting


At an inaugural meeting in St. Maarten of the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance, or DCNA, the joint nature park organizations of the islands of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba unanimously agreed on a three year work plan and action plan for the remainder of 2004. The work of the DCNA will be to promote Dutch Caribbean nature abroad in order to look for urgently needed additional funding, pool the resources of the nature park organizations, set up a website to provide centralized information on all the parks, and develop management effectiveness benchmarks. Working together through the DCNA the parks are determined to do their utmost to achieve financial sustainability and safeguard nature conservation in the Dutch Caribbean.

The nature conservation management organizations (park organizations) recognize that joining forces is a necessity to be heard in a world that comes more and more to the realization that protection of biodiversity cannot only be a local matter but must be undertaken cooperatively by forming networks of protected areas. In a spirit of cooperation they discussed how to work together in practice, and what the needs and expectations of each of the member organizations are with respect to the DCNA. The park organizations not only all suffer from insufficient funding, but also share many other needs characteristic to small islands, such as lack of capacity hampering their work of protecting the parks effectively. Agreement was reached on a list of the most urgent needs shared by the parks that need to be addressed by the DCNA. From this list a three year work program for the DCNA was drafted to address those needs, including a priority action plan for 2004. The meeting also agreed on a final draft of the Articles of Incorporation for the DCNA to legally establish the Foundation.

While the individual park organizations are all actively engaged in education and promoting nature conservation to the local communities on their islands, as well as in managing and protecting the parks, they simply lack the capacity to do much beyond the scope of their own islands. An important task of the DCNA then, is to acquaint the outside world, in particular the Dutch nature organizations and the Dutch people, with the rich biodiversity in the Dutch Caribbean. The idea is to promote understanding in Holland that this is not just a Caribbean resource but that the rich and varied nature of the Dutch Caribbean islands—including tropical rainforest, elfin woods, starkly beautiful arid cactus vegetations, mangrove forest, and magnificent coral reefs—is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and consequently a shared responsibility, especially since being part of the Kingdom closes off many international funding sources intended for nature conservation in developing countries.

This particular task of the DCNA has in fact already started. As a result of a first preliminary meeting in February, a DCNA coordinator was found in the person of Mrs. Kalli De Meyer who started work for the DCNA only about a month ago. Kalli de Meyer is the former park manager of the Bonaire National Marine Park, and recently worked for the large international conservation organization CORAL (Coral Reef Alliance). She has many contacts in conservation circles around the world. At the meeting in St. Maarten, Mrs. De Meyer reported about a first presentation of Dutch Caribbean nature in Holland to the major Dutch conservation organizations. The Dutch organizations all showed great interest and indicated their support for the DCNA initiative. Under the leadership of the Dutch Committee for IUCN, they are expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to that effect shortly.

Another important task of the DCNA will be to provide centralized and easily accessible information about Dutch Caribbean nature and park organizations to donors and potential donors. This information is to include benchmarks to measure the results of the management efforts of the park organizations. This kind of information will help to establish credibility for the DCNA in the outside world and provide a track record demonstrating the progress that DCNA and its constituent organizations are making.

The DCNA meeting in St. Maarten was the culmination of a process that started last year when the Environmental Department of the Netherlands Antilles (MINA), engaged in finding ways to sustainably finance nature conservation in the Netherlands Antilles, received signals that funding for Dutch Caribbean nature conservation from the Netherlands was potentially available, but would best be handled through one central interface. At a subsequent meeting of the joint park organizations of the islands it was recognized that it was time to work more closely together, not just to access the potential funding, but in general to realize sustainable financing, exchange capacity and expertise, and thus ensure that effective management of the parks on the islands will be able to continue in the future. An agreement in principle was reached in February of this year by the six park organizations of the Netherlands Antilles and of Aruba, to form an umbrella organization to address the plight of nature conservation in the Dutch Caribbean islands. At the same time, through contacts with the Dutch Committee for IUCN (World Conservation Union), funding was indeed obtained from the National Post Code Lottery in Holland, just in time to save the Nature Foundation of St. Maarten and the St. Eustatius National Parks Foundation from being forced to close down permanently. Part of this funding also made it possible to appoint a coordinator for the envisioned cooperative umbrella organization for Dutch Caribbean nature conservation named DCNA. At the St. Maarten meeting last week the details of this new cooperative umbrella organization were fleshed out.

For more information contact Mrs. Kalli de Meyer
Phone: +599-717-4555
Cell: +599-786-0675
e-mail: kdm@telbonet.an