- Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Maarten
- Conservation finance
- Business planning, Stakeholder engagement
- Nature managers, NGOs
- Amilcar Guzman
- Assist Saba Conservation Foundation (SCF), St. Eustatius National Parks (STENAPA) and the Nature Foundation Sint Maarten (NFSXM) to strengthen their ability to achieve sustainable financing of the National Parks in Saba, St Eustatius and St Maarten.
In November 2019, the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA) and World Wildlife Fund The Netherlands (WWF-NL) joined forces with Wolfs Company to assist the Saba Conservation Foundation (SCF), St. Eustatius National Parks (STENAPA) and the Nature Foundation Sint Maarten (NFSXM) with strengthening their ability to achieve sustainable financing of the National Parks in Saba, St Eustatius and St Maarten, respectively.
Financing gap
Similar to other protected areas in the Caribbean, the organizations that manage the nature parks in the Dutch Caribbean (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius and Sint Maarten) face a structural shortage of financing to fulfill their nature management tasks. In order to address this problem, several reports have been commissioned to, among others, identify the actual financial needs of the parks, the financing gaps and the potential financing mechanisms that could be implemented to bridge these gaps. However, these studies do not actually generate additional funding and do not address certain outstanding challenges.
Challenges
Some of these challenges include: The lack of nature and financial management plans that provide a solid basis for financial planning, capacity within the park management authorities to actually undertake activities to identify and implement financing mechanisms, obstacles for putting financing mechanisms in practice, designing feasible financial mechanisms within the contextual constraints and possibilities of each of the islands.
Wolfs Company brought in their expertise in conservation finance and facilitated workshops on each of the three SSS-islands of the Dutch Caribbean. This was one of the key phases of a two-year support track to address the challenges identified for the implementation of financing mechanisms to support protected area management, with the ultimate goal of supporting the parks’ management to develop and implement a sustainable financing strategy.
For further information about our work with the Saba Conservation Foundation, click here or here.
To read more about the sustainable finance workshop on St. Maarten, click here.