Netherlands Antilles Sustainable Development

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Netherlands Antilles Sustainable Development

• Netherlands Antilles Sustainable Development
  Coordination Group
• - Barbados Programme of Action -

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Kingdom of the Netherlands

• Consisting of three countries
• Netherlands Antilles
• Aruba
• Netherlands
• Netherlands Antilles are fully autonomous in
  internal affairs. Official language Dutch

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Netherlands Antilles

• Leeward Islands (Language Papiamentu)
• Curaçao Area 444 km2 Population 130.000
• Bonaire Area 288 km2 Population 12.000
• Windward Islands (Language English)
• St Martin Area 34 km2 Population 42.000
• St. Eustatius Area 21 km2 Population 2.200

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Netherlands Antilles (Cont)

• Saba Area 13 km2 Population
  1.400
• National Statistics
• Overall Area 800 km2 Distance between
  Leewards and Windwards 900 km
• Overall Population 185.000
• Per Capita Income US 11,000

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Sustainable Development Constraints, Gaps

• Federal Government Structure in practice a
  federation of five administrative entities,
  strong local island identification (policy
  formulation vs. implementation)
• 185.000 people, 6 governments and parliaments
• Problems of Scale between the islands
• consequences for
• human resources
• capital/funding
• government motivation

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SustainableDevelopment Constraints, Gaps cont.

• Problems of Coordination of Policies
• Problems of funding sources
• Sustainable Development Awareness and Motivation
• Skewed income distribution and increasing poverty
• Volatile Economics

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Actions Taken

• Climate Change
• Historical Willemstad and half of Bonaire at
  sealevel, but no action taken yet against rise of
  sealevel. Water Desalination Plants critically
  located
• Natural and Environmental Disasters
• St. Martin and Curaçao have disaster plans in
  place.
• Waste Management
• Landfills on most islands. Federal Cooperation
  between island waste management companies
• two wastewater treatment plants on Curaçao, one
  or two planned in Bonaire

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Actions Taken Cont.

• Coastal and Marine management
• Marine Conservation Parks in place in all the
  islands. Legislation varies
• Bonaire and Saba have Coastal Management laws and
  policies in place, Curaçao not yet approved.
• Bonaire internationally recognized as best
  manegement practice of Coral Reef management
  together with Belize. Recently also Saba got
  recognition as such.

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Actions Taken Cont. 2

• Freshwater Resources
• Curaçao 100 percent desalination through
  distillation in conjunction with energy
  production
• Planned switch to smaller reverse osmosis plants
  on different sites on the island
• Bonaire and St. Martin, 100 reverse osmosis
• Saba and Statia Rainwater catchment. Statia
  has water quality/quantity problems

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Actions Taken (Cont 3)

• Land Resources
• mining of limestone on Curaçao, limited
  agriculture on all the islands (less than 5 ) of
  food consumption

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Actions Taken (Cont 4)

• Energy Resources
• 80 year Refinery on Curaçao, government owned and
  leased to Venezualas PdVSA
• Diesel Energy Plants on all islands
• Curaçao and Bonaire have wind and solar energy
  regimes belonging to the best in the world
• Two wind energy parks ion Curaçao and Energy
  Company just signed agreement with Coastal Hotels
  for Cold Seawater Cooling Systems

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Actions Taken (Cont 5)

• Tourism Resources
• Introduction of Quality Tags for marine and land
  based tourism facilities in Curaçao and Bonaire
• 2004 Expansion to other islands
• Sustainable Tourism Awareness Programme incoming
  Tourists from Europe for Curaçao and Bonaire
• 2004 Expansion to American, regional and local
  tourism
• Recycling programmes with Hotels
• Inclusion Willemstad UNESCO World Heritage List

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Actions Taken (Cont 6)

• Biodiversity Resources
• National Nature Policy Law and Masterplan in
  Place
• Island legislation behind schedule
• Full membership and implementation of SPAW
  Protocol (Cartagena Convention), CITES, Turtle
  Convention a.o.
• Land and Marine Parks in place on all islands
• feasibility Study on going for establishing a
  national Trustfund for Nature to finance marine
  and land based parks

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Actions Taken (Cont 7)

• Human Resource Development
• Profound Reorganization of Primary and Secondary
  Schooling System on Curaçao, Bonaire and St.
  Eustatius
• Expansion of University through cooperation in
  the region
• ongoing brain drain to Holland
• Implementation
• BPOA Coordination Group proposed and operative
• National Assessment Report planned to be ready
  well before Mauritius