St. Maarten Private Eye

By Rueben J Thompson

Love the Lagoon, Environmental Protection in the Caribbean

EPIC recently received an email from a Lagoon Log reader inquiring whether or not Sint Maarten’s Environmental Foundations and projects such as EPIC’s Love the Lagoon Project are Government financed. The answer to this question is unfortunately a simple: no the island’s environmental foundations and projects are regrettably not government financed in anyway.

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Staff members and volunteers of St. Maarten’s Environmental Foundations: Nature Foundation, St. Maarten Pride Foundation, Ocean Care and EPIC spend much of their time writing and submitting funding/ grant requests to Dutch, local and in some cases American organizations. The Foundations rely on the success of these applications and donations from individuals or corporate citizens to cover their operational costs and other expenses.

It goes without saying that with the tremendous amount of competition for funds to finance environmental projects, within the Netherlands Antilles and the Kingdom of the Netherlands as a whole, grant requests submitted to Funding Agencies by St. Maarten’s environmental organizations are not always successful. The recent trend whereby Funding Agencies have become reluctant to fund operational costs and prefer covering research and project execution expenses instead only adds to the ever growing financial problems many of the island’s environmental organizations face everyday.

Sadly enough Government seems to be reluctant to respond to the different organizations’ many requests for financial assistance or any other form of support for that matter. Politicians particularly those holding office mistakenly see St. Maarten’s Environmental Organizations as some sort of competition or simply as a thorn in their sides. When questioned, by consultants of for instance the tourism master plan or other projects , on their lack of support for environmental organizations politicians have often responded by saying that the organizations are “standing in the way of the island’s successful development”.

St. Maarten’s environmental organizations are not against development they are simply lobbying and fighting for any and all development to be environmentally sustainable and for the protection of the island’s Natural and Cultural heritage and resources. St. Maarten’s development has long stopped being a success story and the island’s Natural and Cultural heritage are under severe threat of disappearing all together which is why last week’s Lagoon Log called for a moratorium on development.

As St. Maarten grows closer to country status each day, the time has come for our Commissioners to realize that Environmental Organizations are not their rivals. St. Maarten’s environmental foundations are and should be supported and accepted as stakeholders, partners and advisors in both successfully establishing the island as a country within the kingdom of the Netherlands and in preserving and protecting the island’s remaining natural and cultural heritage for future generations of St. Maarteners and Visitors alike.

Make sure you read the next Lagoon Log for more answers to your questions and for more information on the Simpson Bay Lagoon.

Rueben J. Thompson

Project Manager Love the Lagoon,
Environmental Protection in the Caribbean

Additional Lagoon Logs - By Rueben J Thompson - EPIC

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