Q&A: RESTORING NATURE ON KLEIN BONAIRE
Klein Bonaire is an uninhabited island off the Bonaire coastline in the Dutch Caribbean. During colonial times it was heavily deforested leaving just low growing scrubs and some patches of trees and cacti.
Elsmarie Beukenboom is former Director of Stichting Nationale Parken Bonaire (STINAPA Bonaire), the driving force behind the island-wide initiative Tene Boneiru Limpi (“Keep Bonaire Clean”), and now dedicates her time to an island-wide reforestation project.
What inspired you to focus your attention on this island?
Klein Bonaire was once a pristine island with an untouched nature. It is my mission to see the nature restored to its former glory. Klein Bonaire offers the perfect conditions for reforestation: the island is uninhabited; it has no grazers but several wells with brackish water. So, no predictors for the plants nor people to destroy them yet water for them to thrive.
What are you doing to help restore the nature on Klein Bonaire?
Using a biological inventory that the park management foundation had made, we selected specific native plants to be planted on Klein Bonaire. Those fruit bearing trees attract birds, that eat the fruits and excrete the seeds elsewhere on the island. In this way they help to further the reforestation process.
The focus was firstly on plants that are low in number and under threat of becoming locally extinct (such as the native Sabal palm (Sabal causuarium) and the rare endemic tree Myrcia curassavica) and secondly on plants that play a significant ecological role as a fruit or flower source for birds or other fauna, such as ‘Watakeli’ (Bourreria succulenta), ‘Mansaliña Bobo’ (Metopium brownei), ‘Palu di Huku’ (Jacquinia arborea) and ‘Palu di Rhambèshi’ (Sideroxylon obovatum). (See: https://dcnanature.org/reforestation-klein-curacao-and-klein-bonaire-successful/ )
What improvements have you seen so far?
The project started in 2010. Although we cannot be certain that the new seedlings we find came from the trees we planted, we are encountering lots of young regrowth of species from the reforestation project elsewhere on the island. So, it is looking promising.
We will continue with our planting efforts. The more time we spend on the island, the more wells we discover. And the more wells we find, the more reforestation project sites we can start. At each site we can plant around 1500 trees. And we recently planted our 1000th Sabal Palm Tree!
Where can we find out more?
Website: stinapabonaire.org/bonaire-national-marine-park/klein-bonaire
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILGHY8-MPm8&ab_channel=STINAPABonaire