Perspectives on coral reef health of Curaçao

When I was 9 years old, my family and I went to Curaçao for holidays. Here, I explored the underwater world for the first time, and I remember that I was amazed by the vibrancy of life that I could find underwater. I remember that there were so many organisms underwater that I could not walk into the water without immediately laying on my belly to not touch or break anything. When I looked through my goggles, I saw fish, corals, anemones, sea snakes, sponges, shrimps, and many more marine organisms. Every single centimetre was occupied with life. It felt amazing! 

Due to this experience, I thought that I should go back to the island for my MSc thesis. Nine months later, I went back to Curaçao to do research on experiences from other people on these changes of coral reefs and how these different interpretations influences ideas on management strategies. The thesis is written as part of the master program Aquaculture & Marine Resource Management, focused on marine governance at the Wageningen University and conducted between September 2022 and April 2023.

During the fieldwork I spoke many interesting people with varying backgrounds: fishers, divers, managers, marine rangers, restaurant managers and researchers. All those people told me about their experiences with the reef and the ways they would manage the coral reefs in order to maintain or improve its health. In addition I also wanted to learn how reefs can be restored and therefore I did a parttime internship at Reef Renewal to learn about their ways of restoring coral reefs.

After 3 months of a lot of talking, interviews and gaining experiences in reef restoration I started with the writing process of my actual thesis. This meant that I analyzed all collected data to make sense of all different perspectives, write a story come with conclusions.

Pictures say more than words, so…