The World Wildlife Fund has shown that in Latin America in the last 50 years our biodiversity has declined by 90%, which is a very serious and worrying situation for the general biodiversity that exists on land and sea. Also in the National report convention of biological diversity found out especially in the waters of the Dutch Caribbean there is nothing to indicate that our nature is recovering and there are no positive changes in Aruba.
There is also the report that was pulled by Carmabi in 2019 that specifically stated that the coast of Aruba is in poor condition and the last remaining piece that is in good condition is at the southern tip of Aruba and in this survey the east coast was not seen in this investigation. It is not just about Aruba but the Caribbean islands have a delicate military situation, but at the same time they are promoting beaches in Aruba and the other islands are also doing it knowing that the Caribbean has a delicate maritime situation.
According to Sietske van der Wal Inter Marine Park Manager and Conservation Education manager of the Aruba National Park Foundation FPNA we can keep putting artificial corals, but besides that we must keep asking ourselves if Aruba should go in this direction. However, we will continue to call for awareness and call for changes that reduce all the different stresses on our corals and lakes. This includes all sources of indirect marine pollution, but also from the ground, It is a reality that there are many activities that take place on land that affect our lakes, those that create pollution of our waters that cause the quality of our lakes to drop and are very low, according to Sietske van der Wal Inter Marine Park Manager and Conservation Education manager of the Aruba National Park Foundation FPNA this is something that should also change in the long term. Changes are expected to occur as quickly as possible so the effects of change will take time.
The Aruba National Park Foundation cannot do this work alone, so it trains volunteers who want to help and make their work possible for the FPNA and will train anyone who wants to, but this is especially for the students of the University of Aruba and volunteers so that we have a much larger, broader team that can help monitor the different reefs and the progress on the artificial reefs as well.
