Combating Erosion and Nature Restoration on Bonaire

Erosion and resulting sediment run-off are big environmental concerns throughout the Caribbean Region and for good reason. Not only does the removal of soil and sediment particles reduce soil quality for native plants, but it also poses a serious threat to adjacent corals reefs. Soil carried to the ocean as sediment run-off smothers corals and hinders their growth and is typically associated with coral mortality. An ambitious three year-project to reduce Bonaire’s erosion problem, improve water management and restore some of Bonaire’s natural areas is currently in progress thanks to funding by The Netherlands Ministry of Economics through the Nature Fund. The “Combating Erosion and Nature Restoration” project started at the end of 2016 and will end in October 2019. It is led by Bonaire Agri and Aqua Business NV (Sherwin Pourier), Wayaká Advies BV (Jan Jaap van Almenkerk) and coordinated by the Island Government, Directorate of Spatial Planning and Development .

This news-item was published in BioNews 8 -2017.