Sustainable finance project to help Saba Conservation Foundation

This week the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA) and World Wide Fund for Nature The Netherlands (WWF-NL) join 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.

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.

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 will bring in their expertise in conservation finance and facilitate workshops on each of the three SSS-islands of the Dutch Caribbean. The objective of this project is 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.

Sustainable Finance workshops started this week on Saba and will also be organized the coming days on Statia and St Maarten.

DCNA