The Netherlands’ Largest National Park

For the longest time, the Saba Bank has been the largest and richest forgotten treasure within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It lies just 5 kilometers (3 miles) south west of the island of Saba but extends almost 70km from the Saba coastline covering an area roughly the size of the Dutch part of the Waddenzee or, more evocatively, about the same size as Luxembourg (2,679 km2 / 850 mi2). The Saba Bank was set up as a nature park as recently as 2010, and was recognized as a protected area of regional importance under the SPAW-protocol (Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife of the Wider Caribbean) in 2012. In the same year it was declared a National Park, making it the largest National Park in the Netherlands (DCNA, n.d.).

This news article was published in BioNews 31.

BioNews is produced by the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance and funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.