Today the world celebrates the International Day for Biological Diversity, also called Biodiversity Day. This years theme is: Harmony with Nature and Sustainable Development.
Our three Caribbean islands have been fighting for years to get attention to conservation and biodiversity issues both terrestrial and marine. It is still not a major political issue, even though as small island states the issues concerning these subjects are more crucial than ever. The problem is even more severe if you realize that a lot of politicians in the local governments still refer to nature conservation as ‘wanting to protect rats, mice and cockroaches’, and ‘nature can not be eaten’. Sustainable development is interpreted as ‘build an eco-resort there to attract so called eco-tourists, whilst we build massive mass tourism resorts elsewhere on the island’.
Biodiversity faces a grim future on the islands or Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. There are a number of individuals and organisations working hard on turning the tide and time will tell if they were successful. So today is as much for Biodiversity itself as it is for the people fighting to protect and conserve.
On the photocards a small selection of the biodiversity of all three islands.
