Since the first confirmed sighting at Watamula on October 27, 2009, the lionfish count on Curaçao is now at 21 (twenty one). The first reports were of 2 inch juvenile fish but now, two months later, 5 inch fish are being reported, so they appear to be growing fast. Reports have ranged from Watamula in the west to Jan Thiel in the east all along the leeward side of the island. They are presumably also present on the windward coast but there is very little diving there and they would go unnoticed. The first lionfish report on Bonaire came in on October 26 and more than 35 have now been reported.

On Bonaire the National Marine Park is working with the dive shops to respond to the lionfish threat. On Curaçao the Agriculture and Fisheries Service (LVV), Carmabi and Reef Care Curaçao recently sat together to join forces to combat this alien fish species that has been shown to devour up to 80% of the young fish that settle on the reefs. Without any natural enemies, resistant against diseases, and with prey fish that don’t even recognize these fish for the voracious predators they are, lionfish can be expected to be disastrous to the already stressed reef ecosystem, unless we do something about it.

The lionfish are here to stay; there is no way to eradicate them from our waters. These fish live down to 500 ft depths and even if it were possible to kill every one of them down to those depths, new ones would continue to come in with the ocean currents. So, what can be done then? Both Bonaire (more than 35 sightings since Oct. 26) and Curaçao are in the unique position of potentially being able to keep the lionfish effectively in check to a certain extent. Both islands are small, fringed by a narrow reef zone and visited by large numbers of divers. Many dive sites are visited often by enough divers to spot most lionfish coming into those areas. A concerted effort by dive shops and diving community can keep those dive sites clear of lionfish, making them into something like a reserve, an oasis where the regular reef fish can live and grow without being decimated by lionfish.

To be really effective an all-out effort by everyone in the dive community is needed. It will need to be an ongoing effort that cannot stop. Everyone needs to be convinced that killing these invaders is really necessary, never mind that they are such beautiful fish. We humans have shown that we can effectively eradicate fish such as groupers that are much harder to catch than lionfish; let’s put those ‘skills’ to good use for once! Besides, lionfish are very good to eat once they get bigger.

If we can do this and keep it up we can set an example for the whole of the Caribbean. The mostly lionfish free areas will also provide perfect research opportunities to study the effects of lionfish on the Caribbean reef system.

Reef Care, LVV, and Carmabi are working together to coordinate this effort and to ensure the best use of all resources. Reef Care Curaçao has ordered clear vinyl nets that are best suited to catch lionfish. Those nets are expected to arrive by the end of January and will be distributed to dive shops so they will have them ready when a lionfish is spotted. Meanwhile we are asking all dive shops to have all dive masters and instructors carry with them a piece of bright flagging tape. When a lionfish is sighted the exact spot can be marked by tying a piece of flagging tape to a rock or dead coral. Lionfish stay in the same spot for long periods of time so you can go back to the marked spot with the nets later to kill or catch it (a long-handled BBQ fork can be used to kill them for now).
All local divers are also asked to carry a piece of flagging tape with them on their dives to mark the spot of any lionfish they see and then contact either a dive shop or one of the numbers below to report the place and depth so someone can come and catch it.

All lionfish that have been caught or killed should be put into separate Ziploc bags, with location and depth written on it with marker pen, and then put into the freezer. Notify Carmabi, Reef Care or LVV to come pick it up. It is important that we get the dead lionfish so their DNA and stomach contents can be studied to learn more about them. Reef Care is putting together a Lionfish package consisting of nets, flagging tape, sharpie pen and ziploc bags, available for dive shops on request.

To report lionfish sightings please send an e-mail to Paul Hoetjes (paul@mina.vomil.an) and Mark Vermeij (carmabilog@gmail.com). Please include the site and depth where it was found, its estimated size, whether it was killed or collected, or if the spot was marked. You can also call or send a text message to Paul Hoetjes at 511-7061 or Mark Vermeij 510-3067. The data will be added to a database of all the sightings.



DCNA CONCLUDES MEETING IN CURACAO - 06/01/2010

Last week the board of the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA) met on Curaçao. The participants were welcomed by Governor Goedgedrag who opened the meeting and invited the participants to Fort Amsterdam for the regular get-together of the Governor’s Cabinet after the meeting. The main focus of the meeting was the issues faced by the Parks of the islands, the possible solutions and potential obstacles. Another important topic was the communication plan aimed at creating awareness in Holland on the great biodiversity that is present in the overseas parts of the Kingdom. Linked to this is the expectation of the Dutch Postcode Lottery that DCNA will provide exposure for the Lottery in return for their financial support. The Postcode Lottery this year accepted DCNA as one of its beneficiaries, providing half a million Euro as yearly financial support for DCNA’s trust fund.

The DCNA board meets twice a year, bringing together the park managers of all the Dutch Caribbean islands including Aruba, as well as two independent financial experts and a former Dutch parliamentary leader, to discuss ongoing affairs. The Secretariat of DCNA runs the activities of DCNA that come out of a five year strategic plan and yearly action plans. The main task of DCNA is to fundraise for its trust fund that in ten years time is intended to provide stable and secure funding from its revenues for all the parks. Another important objective of DCNA is to help the parks with capacity building and training; Funders like to see that their money is well spent on capable and effective nature management organizations. In order to be able to effectively fundraise, particularly in the Netherlands, it is essential that the Dutch public understands that the Kingdom of the Netherlands includes a treasure trove of biodiversity in its smallest and most vulnerable overseas parts, where it is at risk and needs careful management.

DCNA has developed a comprehensive communication plan to build awareness in the Netherlands of overseas biodiversity, targeting Dutch nature lovers using the help of its Dutch Partner organizations, which include all the major nature conservation organizations in the Netherlands. The communication plan also takes into account the fact that DCNA was granted beneficiary status of the Postcode Lottery this year, which brings with it the expectation of a lot of communication efforts showcasing this relationship with the Lottery.

In light of the upcoming constitutional changes DCNA is making an inventory of the work of the parks on behalf of the island governments, the issues facing the parks in accomplishing those tasks, and possible solutions and obstacles that could stand in the way of those solutions. At the same time the research and monitoring needs required by international conventions and treaties to protect biodiversity are being identified. DCNA will use this information to present concrete and specific recommendations with regard to the process of constitutional change and to show what will be needed to ensure adequate compliance of international agreements by all the future new entities.

Since board meetings of DCNA require a lot of traveling among the islands, the board decided that for each meeting measures would be taken to offset CO¬2 production. For this meeting the board visited the Christoffel Park to symbolically plant the first 25 trees of a total of 125 native trees purchased by DCNA to be planted there.



MARINE MAMMAL STRANDING RESPONSE WORKSHOP - 13/11/2009
Dutch Caribbean islands discuss optimum response to marine mammal strandings.

From Nov. 5-7 a three day training workshop took place on Curaçao about how to respond and what measures to take when whales or dolphins are found stranded. The workshop was attended by participants from all the Dutch Caribbean islands (including Aruba) representing both NGOs and government departments that would likely be involved in marine mammal strandings. The participants also included a number of experts from the USA, such as the chairman of the US Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), the national stranding coordinator from NOAA/NMFS, representatives from the Smithsonian Institution and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, as well as a representative of the Regional Activity Center (RAC) of the SPAW (Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife) Protocol of which both the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba are parties. The workshop was organized by the SCCN (Southern Caribbean Cetacean Network) in cooperation with the Eastern Caribbean Cetacean Network (ECCN), and the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA), with financial support from the US Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), and hosted by the Sea Aquarium/Dolphin Academy Curaçao. NOAA/NMFS donated its field guide for strandings, “Marine Mammals Ashore” for all the workshop’s participants. This workshop is part of the activities coming out of the Marine Mammal Action Plan (MMAP) for the Wider Caribbean, recently adopted by the SPAW Protocol.

The workshop was all the more relevant considering the recent stranding of a pilot whale at Jan Thiel Bay some four months ago now. The participants were able to take a look at this real-life stranding case, even though this was not a typical case, since in 90% of stranding cases the animal in question is either dead or dying and cannot be saved. The participants were even there during the first real attempt to release the pilot whale with a passing group of pilot whales, but regrettably this attempt failed.

The objective of the workshop was to set up a response mechanism for strandings ensuring that everyone is prepared as well as possible and knows what to do when a dolphin or whale stranding happens. Even when the animal in question cannot be saved or has been dead for a while, the incident can still greatly benefit our understanding of marine mammals in our region and can provide clues to determine the cause of the stranding. The USA has been organizing the response in cases of strandings for over 30 years already, through its Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program under NOAA/NMFS, and various tools, regulations, and guidelines have been developed, analogous to oil spill emergency response plans. These regulations were developed not in the last place to safeguard the health of both public and rescuers, since marine mammal diseases can be contagious to humans. In addition criteria were developed to enable quick decisions as to what is feasible or not when the animal is still alive. When one animal is stranded things are relatively easy, but when twenty or fifty whales strand simultaneously (as has happened on St. Maarten a few years back), or when a fifty feet long, thirty ton decomposing whale washes ashore on a public beach, quick and effective action is essential. NOAA offered it’s assistance to the islands and looks forward to future cooperation.

The participants were all very positive about the workshop. They were very happy about the possibility of working with the other islands in the future and exchanging data. “When a stranding happens you often feel powerless and are forced to take hard decisions on your own. It is a lonely feeling. Now, I feel I can fall back on others” said one of the participants. Another participant commented on the usefulness of what he had learned: “we learned what to look at, how to use various indications to deduce how the animal died. For example how to recognize scars from monofilament fishing line when the line itself is gone, or how to distinguish the deep cuts caused by propellers from similar cuts from sharp rocks. We also learned to tell whether an animal drowned or not. You know CSI, that television series? We are now Stranding Scene Investigators!”

The workshop participants agreed to set up a structured response mechanism on their island when they get back, and get the approval and endorsement of the island government for that. The participants also committed to start a focused program of collecting whale and dolphin sightings, where possible documented with photographs that can help identify the individual animals, so they can be recognized when they subsequently show up at another island. The islands agreed to cooperate and exchange their findings and data by way of a sub-regional network that would in turn connect with other (future) sub-regional networks such as the Eastern Caribbean Cetacean Network (ECCN). A stranding response tool kit will be put together and provided to each of the islands. Further training will take place in the future and each island will regularly refresh the stranding response training. Finally the workshop agreed that designation of a marine mammal sanctuary in Dutch Caribbean waters should be pursued in conjunction with the existing ‘sister sanctuaries’ of the Dominican Republic and the US and the French initiative to establish a marine mammal sanctuary around the French islands.



SCCN - SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN CETACEAN NETWORK ESTABLISHED - 09/06/2009
Research and Protection of Whales and Dolphins
“Preserving whales and dolphins….. Protecting our seas, protecting ourselves.”

• Mr. George Kieffer, Director of Dolphins and Programs at the Dolphin Academy/Sea Aquarium and marine biologist, as President.


• Mrs. Tone Moller, Director of Commerce for the Avila Hotel Curacao, and an enthusiastic supporter of education about whales and dolphins, as Treasurer


• Ms. Iñez Hallewas, Operational Manager for Dolphin Academy, as Secretary


• Mr. Gerard van Buurt, biologist and a former head of the Fisheries Sector, Department of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, Curacao. He is an experienced all-round conservationist who has also published material on the reptiles and amphibians of the region, including sea turtles. As general board member


• Dr. Dana Wetzel, head of the Aquatic Toxicology Program at Mote Marine Laboratory. She is a chemist and seeks to determine what effects toxic substances have on marine life.

MINA supports the SCCN goals and will provide advice to the fledgling foundation. John Reynolds has also agreed to provide independent advice.

SCCN's website (http://www.sccnetwork.org) is currently under development.

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¹)The SPAW Protocol is one of three protocols of the Convention for the protection and development of the marine environment of the Wider Caribbean (the Cartagena Convention), which is the legal instrument of the Caribbean Environment Program, one of the Regional Seas Programs of the UNEP. The other two protocols of the Cartagena Convention are the Oil Spill protocol and the Land Based Sources of Marine Pollution (LBS) Protocol.



DCNA BOARD MEETING ON SABA - 09/06/2009

Last week the thirteenth Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) of the Caribbean Environment Program (CEP) convened on Antigua. The CEP is one of the regional seas programs under the UN Environment Program, and comprises the Cartagena Convention for the protection of the marine environment of the Wider Caribbean Region, which includes the Oil Spill Protocol, SPAW (Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife), and LBS (land-based sources of marine pollution) Protocols. In conjunction with the IGM, the fifth conference of the parties of the SPAW protocol took place. Some important decisions were taken during both meetings finally opening the way for activities that directly address conservation of species and areas.

An issue that has been plaguing the CEP for over twenty years now, ever since the signing of the Cartagena Convention, was an agreement among the countries about the rules of procedure that would govern the Convention. Points of contention included the way overseas territories (i.e. the French, British and Dutch islands, each with their unique constitutional system) could participate in the Convention, the way financial contributions could be dealt with, how the Executive Secretary would be selected, and how decisions would be made. This 13th IGM has finally resolved this by removing the issue of designation of the Executive Secretary from the Rules of Procedure, keeping the one paragraph on decision making in brackets (meaning the default UN mechanism of consensus will be used until the matter is resolved), and finally agreeing that there is no practicable way to accommodate territories in the UN system. With that, the Rules of Procedure were finally adopted.

Another important document that was finally adopted after more than 6 years of debate was the “Guidelines for the establishment and operation of Regional Activity Centers and Regional Activity Networks for the Cartagena Convention”. Such RACs and RANs are very important instruments for the ‘on the ground’ activities for the Convention and it s protocols. The guidelines now adopted outline who can establish them, how, and how they should operate. The important contentious issue resolved during the meeting is that NGOs can also establish RACs or RANs, as long as they do it through an arrangement with a government.

When the Cartagena Convention (for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean) was drafted, back in the early nineteen-eighties, climate change was only just starting to be recognized as a possible global danger and was far from being an accepted fact. Few people paid any attention to it. As a result, the Convention does not include any text on climate change. The meeting last week acknowledged in a milestone decision that, had the Convention been written today, it surely would have addressed this issue, which will have very serious impacts on the Caribbean region. These impacts will range from agriculture (changed rain patterns, higher temperatures), to fisheries (moving fish migration patterns, impacts on spawning cycles), tourism (beach erosion, loss of coral reefs, milder temperatures in non-tropical regions), to human health, and unprecedented damage from hurricanes with higher intensities and ranging further South into regions that never or very rarely experienced hurricanes before. The meeting instructed the Secretariat to give more attention to climate change, in particular with respect to adaptation to coming impacts that can no longer be stopped, and cooperation with ongoing efforts.

The SPAW Conference of Parties preceding the IGM similarly took some milestone decisions including the adoption, after three years of discussion, of a Marine Mammal Action Plan (MMAP) for the Wider Caribbean, and the adoption of guidelines and criteria for Protected Areas to be listed under the SPAW protocol after a five-year process. Together with the already adopted criteria for listing of endangered species under the SPAW Protocol, this means that the real work of the SPAW protocol can finally start, which is to create a network of protected area in the region, and cooperate on the protection of threatened species such as marine mammals. The Netherlands Antilles informed the meeting that it is ready to propose its protected areas through the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA) for listing under the SPAW protocol according to the now adopted criteria. Some procedural work remains to be done for the SPAW protocol, i.e. the development of criteria and guidelines for exemptions under the protocol, in which the Netherlands Antilles will again take an active role, and development of guidelines to prevent species from becoming endangered or threatened, which has been postponed for now.



SABA BANK YIELDS MORE TREASURES - 17/11/2007
New Surprises on the Saba Bank

As of May 1 the Department of Environment of the Netherlands Antilles (MINA), together with the Saba Conservation Foundation (SCF), and with the support of Conservation International (CI), is starting a detailed study of the Saba Bank. The study will provide the necessary knowledge of life on the Bank to draft a sound management plan. In addition the study will provide the details necessary to draft a proposal to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to grant the Saba Bank the international status of Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA). This status will not only profile the bank internationally, but will also allow regulation of international shipping in the area.

Over the past decade, MINA has undertaken various surveys of the Bank, to get a better idea of the natural resources of this huge area, which covers a larger area than all the islands of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba put together. A general review of the little existing knowledge was compiled in 1996, providing a general characterization of the Bank, which is considered to be the third largest atoll (albeit submerged) of the world. The next step was a year-long assessment of the fisheries on the bank and the importance to the Saban economy. MINA then produced a video of the area in order to make people more aware of the importance of the Bank and its natural resources. Finally last year a rapid biodiversity assessment was carried out together with Conservation International, which put the Saba Bank on the map of the world with the discovery of many new algae (or seaweeds) species and rare fish species. Mark and Diane Littler of the Smithsonian Institution, world renowned experts on marine algae, pronounced the Bank the richest area of the Caribbean for algae.

Because of this importance of the Bank for biodiversity worldwide, Conservation International decided to support further work on the Bank leading to sustainable management of its unique resources. They pledged to process the data of last year’s hydrographic survey by the Dutch research ship H.M.S. Snellius. The Dutch Hydrographic Service visits the Bank every ten years as part of its international obligation to map the sea areas that fall under the responsibility of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. CI promised to produce a very detailed map of the Bank from the state of the art sonar data of the Snellius (see example below).

In May 2007 a first workshop will bring together the partners in the project and kick off the activities.