November 18th, 2010: BONAIRE MARINE PARK CANDIDATE FOR WORLD HERITAGE LIST
Kralendijk – The Bonaire Marine Park is a candidate to be on the prestigious world heritage list: the ‘UNESCO world heritage site'. STINAPA Is extremely pleased and proud that the Bonaire Marine Park has been nominated to be on the UNESCO list of sites that are the world's heritage.
In 2002 the government of Bonaire petitioned the Dutch Antillean government to start the proceedings to place the Bonaire Marine Park on the UNESCO world heritage list. This year the Bonaire government received a copy of a letter which the Dutch Culture Ministry sent to Mrs. Emily de Jongh-Elhage, informing her that the Ministry formed a commission: ‘Commissie Herziening Voorlopige Lijst Werelderfgoed'. Every 10 years the Netherlands revises the list of nominees they propose to UNESCO. This time the ministry requested the commission to pay more attention to the Caribbean islands in the Dutch Kingdom. After that, the secretary of the aforementioned committee advised Bonaire that they would send a few members of the commission to Bonaire to discuss the possible nomination. That was a pleasant surprise for us as we did not know that the Dutch Antillean government had sent the petition to the Dutch Minister of Culture in 2002. STINAPA is very proud that the commission placed the Bonaire Marine Park on the list of 9 candidates which the Minister of culture will submit to the UNESCO Head office in Paris in April of next year.
It will take approximately 10 years until all candidates will be on the list, as every country can only have one nominee placed on the list per year. But the nomination by itself means a lot for the recognition of the country, especially in relation to tourism. Many visitors will consider destinations on the world heritage list as a guarantee for a good product.
