These categories are specially created for the many very interesting visions and stories of 'the' Captain Don.
If you don't know this fabulous person, please read the stories, if you know, read the stories too!
There are 3 chapters in 3 categories, #1, #2 and #3. So please, start with #1.
Think about it, talk about it and your comments are more than welcome!
No. SECOND
An excerpt from the book,
Guide to the Bonaire Marine Park
by Tom van’t Hof Msc 1997
“There's more to a marine park than fees, moorings and markers. There is a philosophy behind it, and there are long term goals and objectives. For a more comprehensive understanding of the Bonaire Marine Park, we must go back in time a little.
Due to the efforts of Captain Don, who is not only the founding father of the diving industry in Bonaire, but also the first promoter of reef conservation, the Government of Bonaire banned all spear fishing in 1971 for a five-year period. In 1976 the ban on spear fishing was extended indefinitely and corals also became protected. Captain Don introduced the use of moorings to prevent reef damage by anchors.
By the mid-seventies, plans were underway for an island-wide marine park in Bonaire to afford long term protection to Bonaire's exceptional reef system. The driving forces behind that effort were STINAPA (the Netherlands Antilles National Parks Foundation) and a group of Bonaire devotees in the Netherlands, headed by Carel Steensma, a former KLM director and close friend of Captain don/ and more importantly, HRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, the then Chairman of the World Wildlife Fund. The combined efforts of these people and organizations led to the establishment of the Bonaire Marine Park, beginning in 1979, with funding from World Wildlife Fund Netherlands, the Dutch Government, the Government of the Netherlands Antilles and the Island Government of Bonaire.
The philosophy behind the marine park was that, if we were to derive long term benefits and enjoyment from the reef system, we had to ensure that we would use it wisely and that any impacts that might threaten the integrity of the reef system were avoided. The overall goal of reef conservation in Bonaire, as described in the original 'Guide to the Bonaire Marine Park" (Van't Hof, 1983), was to maintain the coral reef ecosystem, as well as the sea grass and mangrove systems of the lagoon Lac with their high biological productivity and esthetic values in order to ensure continuing returns from fishing and recreation at sustainable levels'.
That goal can only be accomplished by active and ongoing management.”
Tom van’t Hof
From a previous works by don/ 1990
From the beginning I had sensed the heart of this island was within her forest of living coral, and it proved to be so. In time Bonaire emerged from her cocoon to become a top ranking scuba diving destination, a leader in reef ecology, and the world’s first island-wide Marine Park. Bonaire serves as a drawing board for reef conservation for the rest of the world to follow.
Because of an early, enlightened conservation, Bonaire has been able to “have her cake and eat it too.” The living reefs are the cake, and the hundreds of divers a year are the "eating it too." Today, scuba diving is the heart of Bonaire tourism, and tourism is the soul of the island's economy. Bonaire's reef resources have proven to be her treasure, her bay richer than a field of gold, her living reefs ensuring that she is no longer An Island Adrift.
don/
Posted by: Captain Don | September 03, 2006 at 07:19 PM