Ecosystem

The total economic value of nature on Bonaire

Healthy ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves are critical to Bonairean society. In the last decades, various local and global developments have resulted in serious threats to these fragile ecosystems of Bonaire, thereby jeopardizing the foundations of the island’s economy. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how nature contributes to Bonaire’s economy and its wellbeing in order to make well-founded decisions when managing the economy and nature of this beautiful tropical island. This research aims to determine the economic value of the main ecosystem services that are provided by the natural resources of Bonaire and their overall importance to society. The challenge of this project is to deliver sound scientific insights that will guide decision-making regarding the protection of Bonaire’s ecosystems and the management of the island’s economy.

By assigning economic values to the main ecosystem services of Bonaire, this research draws attention to the economic benefits of biodiversity and highlights the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. The study addresses the most relevant ecosystems and ecosystem services for Bonaire and applies a range of economic valuation and evaluation tools. By surveying over 1,500 persons, including tourists, fishermen, local residents, and citizens of the Netherlands, this study estimated the willingness of individuals to pay for the protection of Bonairean nature, as well as mechanisms (e.g. user fees) through which such payments would be transferred. Furthermore, a scenario analysis is conducted to inform decision makers about the most effective strategies to protect the ecosystems of Bonaire. This study intensively involved stakeholders from the start to finish, which facilitated data collection while simultaneously building capacity in applying the concept of ecosystem services among the target audience.

In total, more than 10 different ecosystem services have been valued in monetary terms. The totaleconomic value (TEV) of the ecosystem services provided by the marine and terrestrial ecosystems of Bonaire is $105 million per year. This TEV and its underlying components can be used to build a strategy for effective conservation measures on Bonaire. After extensively analyzing different scenarios for future ecosystem services values one result becomes very clear: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In other words, it is more efficient to prevent extensive environmental damage than trying to revitalize the environment while there are still threats at hand. With the current threats unmanaged, the TEV of Bonairean nature will decrease from $105 million today to around $60 million in ten years time and to less than $40 million in 30 years. The project is well documented and provides several extensive online reports, five easily accessible policy briefs and a beautiful film documentary that translates the scientific results into real life situations on Bonaire.

Date
2013
Data type
Research report
Theme
Research and monitoring
Report number
R-13/01
Geographic location
Bonaire

The environmental impact of the reverse osmosis desalination plant on the immediately surrounding water and coral reef ecosystem in Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean

One of the most promising solutions to the growing shortage of potable water is the tapping of the oceans through desalination. Until recently the high energy costs of this technology has kept it restricted to oil rich countries in the Middle East. As the need for fresh water has grown and the technology has improved, municipal desalination has slowly expanded out of this region and several plants have been built in the Caribbean and Australia, with more planned. These two regions also house some of the highest concentrations of reefs in the world, and exceedingly little research has been done on the impact of effluent from desalination plants on coral reef ecosystems. Desalination plants release hypersaline water with heightened thermal energy, lowered O2 levels, and a variety of chemical additives. This study used a modified AGRRA benthic survey method to compare coral mortality and reef composition outside the desalination plant to a control site in Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean. The LaMotte Salt Water AquaCulture Test Kit and Hanna Instruments HI 713 Phosphate Low Range kit were used to compare water samples within and between sites. The reef in close proximity to the desalination plant was found to have significantly lower live hard coral, gorgonian, and fire coral cover, and higher sand cover by percent than the control site. The reef also showed significantly higher rates of coral mortality than the control site. The water around the plant was also found to have higher salinity, but lower levels of CO2 and nitrates than the control site. These results suggest that the desalination plant has a negative effect on the surrounding coral reef ecosystem’s health and complexity. These results should give pause to governments planning the development of desalination plants near coral reef environments until more research can be done into this technology’s_environmental_impact.

This student research was retrieved from Physis: Journal of Marine Science IX (Spring 2011)19: 57-63 from CIEE Bonaire.

Date
2011
Data type
Other resources
Theme
Research and monitoring
Geographic location
Bonaire
Author

The effect of social status and species on habitat preference of grunts, Haemulidae, on the fringing coral reef surrounding Bonaire

Many fish prefer to live in certain habitats based on protection, shade cover, rugosity, and foraging return. Haemulidae, also known as grunts, are a family of fishes that are prevalent on Bonaire and can be found throughout tropical coral reef ecosystems. This study utilized in situ observations to investigate the preferred habitats of solitary grunts compared to colonial grunts based on the amount of the of protection and shade cover that the habitat provided. Three types of grunts were focused on in this study: blue striped grunts (Haemulon sciurusnch), French grunts (Haemulon flavolineatu), and smallmouth grunts (Haemulon chrysargyreum). The results of this study demonstrated that solitary smallmouth grunts utilized habitats that provided the most protection. Further, solitary smallmouth grunts were found in habitats shaded by coral more than the other grunt species. French grunts were found in overall shade cover more than both smallmouth grunts and blue striped grunts. This study showed that blue striped grunts rely mainly on their size for protection, smallmouth grunts on schooling, and French grunts on habitat. A general knowledge of grunts habitat preferences is beneficial because many reefs worldwide are currently degrading. If the reefs continue to degrade, grunts could be in danger because of their specific habitat preferences, based on both their species and social status. Preserving the complexity of coral reef habitats is crucial for some grunts, such as French and smallmouth grunts, but it is not crucial for other grunts, such as blue striped grunts.

This student research was retrieved from Physis: Journal of Marine Science XVII (Spring 2015)19: 34-42 from CIEE Bonaire.

Date
2015
Data type
Other resources
Theme
Research and monitoring
Geographic location
Bonaire
Author

Indicators on the status and trends of ecosystems in the Dutch Caribbean

The Caribbean islands of Bonaire, Saba, St.Eustatius, Aruba, Curacao and St. Maarten are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The islands have a rich biological diversity and a variety of globally threatened ecosystems. These ecosystems are important for their services such as the production of food, coastal protection, tourism attraction, erosion control, medicine, carbon sequestration and climate change resilience, water and air purification and/or retention, and non-material benefits such as heritage and recreational experiences. Robust monitoring indicators are needed to assess ecosystem health in relation to environmental change and socio-economic stressors and exploitation.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands has ratified international treaties and conventions, signed regional agreements and implemented national law for the protection of nature and biodiversity in the Dutch Caribbean. These treaties call for reporting on status and trends of biodiversity.
Currently considerable effort is being invested in collecting baseline data and local monitoring to support local policy on and management of nature and biodiversity. These activities partially overlap with the demands of treaty reporting requests, but do not provide all the data necessary to satisfy the needs of either the reporting obligations or the local policy and management needs. The main issues are that:
• Existing monitoring programmes on the islands do not cover all required biodiversity and nature topics;
• Several existing monitoring programmes are based on methods that cannot be used to generate the indicators required.
This report concludes that monitoring all the separate species identified would require considerable resources. Monitoring in the Dutch Caribbean cannot be compared to the Netherlands which has a long history of monitoring the natural environment and many periodic reviews of the efficacy of monitoring techniques. Holistic monitoring of ecosystems using key indicators is a good alternative to detailed monitoring as the ecosystem health implicitly considers all dependent species. However, some additional species monitoring is necessary of keystone species, endangered species, commercially important species and invasive species.
It is recommended to :

  • Keep supporting the foolowing current activities: Maintain existing monitoring on: turtle nests, coral, cover, shark and ray densities, flamingo counts, yellow-shouldered amazon roost counts and terns. Adjust the existing monitoring for: fish densities and population structure, bird species richness, red billed tropic bird, Lesser Antillean Iguana;
  • Set up ecosystem/habitat monitoring;
  • Set up vegetation monitoring;
  • Link forest and migratory bird monitoring to vegetation monitoring;
  • Link bird of prey monitoring to flamingo monitoring on Bonaire;
  • Collect data on pressures and abiotic conditions from other sources ;
  • Stimulate the use of volunteers for monitoring
Date
2015
Data type
Research report
Theme
Governance
Legislation
Research and monitoring
Report number
Alterra report 2544
Geographic location
Bonaire
Saba
Saba bank
St. Eustatius