Bonaire's number one tourist attraction is in trouble.
You can see it as soon as you submerge into the flat-calm, teal ocean and find a graveyard of bleached coral. Years of pollution, climate change and disease have taken their toll on Bonaire's marine life. The Caribbean island, perhaps one of the greatest scuba diving destinations on earth, is fighting to keep its once-vibrant reefs.
But if you look beyond the dead coral lining the shallow waters near the shore, you'll see something else: Trees made of PVC pipe, from which new coral is growing. These nurseries are part of Bonaire's efforts to save the reef — and tourism.
In Bonaire, sustainability is a do-or-die proposition. If this island doesn't do something soon, its reefs could perish — and the reason so many people come to this tropical island will evaporate. But there are other equally important sustainability efforts underway, including a focus on solar energy and an innovative cooking school that specializes in growing its own food.
Last week, in the first part of my series on tourism and sustainability, we visited Panama — a destination that has embraced sustainability despite the environmental destruction caused by the Panama Canal. Today, we're moving on to Bonaire, a small island off the coast of Venezuela that needs to become sustainable if it wants to survive as a tourism destination.
Bonaire is heavily dependent on tourism. In 2023, it had 169,706 overnight visitors, about the same as the previous year and surpassing the prepandemic 2019 numbers by almost 8%. Most visitors come from Europe, and most come to dive and snorkel its famous reefs. Tourism accounts for more than 40% of economic activity and generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year.
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“If there are no fish, there are no visitors”
Paul Coolen, manager of Buddy Dive Resort Bonaire, the location of one of the coral nurseries, says repairing the coral reefs is an existential issue.
"We want to be Buddy Dive," he says. "Not Buddy Dove."
Buddy Dive and other dive shops in Bonaire are part of an island-wide effort to regrow coral. It's being coordinated through Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and restoring Bonaire’s coral reefs through a large-scale reef restoration program.
Coolen says there are two reasons to bring back the coral. Obviously, undoing the destruction caused by runoff from sewage and chemicals is the right thing to do. But it’s also good for business.
"If there's no coral, there's no fish," he says. "If there are no fish, there are no visitors."
How do dive shops like Buddy Dive help? They offer a special reef renewal class through the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI). After students complete a two-day course, they're qualified to help Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire tending the coral nurseries.
Coral farming is hard work. You spend an hour at the bottom of a reef, fighting currents, and scraping fast-growing algae off PVC pipe. But it is also rewarding. Some parts of the reef are already well on their way to recovery.
A coordinated effort to restore Bonaire's reef
Caitie Reza, the communications director for Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire, says the organization uses two techniques to restore threatened coral species.
The first is a process called fragmentation, which grows coral in nurseries and outplants them onto degraded reef sites around Bonaire. A second method, larval propagation, facilitates sexual reproduction in coral to produce genetically unique coral that can be transferred to reef sites.
Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire relies on 14 dive shops on the island to supply volunteers who can tend the coral nurseries. It's an opportunity for tourists to visit Bonaire, go diving, and do some good.
"It's also an example of a good mutual relationship between a non-profit and businesses on the island," she says.
There's more happening behind the scenes. Bonaire's current government has an ambitious tourism development plan to promote sustainability through local businesses. And it has been trying to protect the environment for years. The island is home to the oldest national park in the former Netherlands Antilles and all of the water surrounding the island is a protected marine park.
But divers aren't the only ones concerned about the environment on Bonaire. Across the island, a new boutique hotel is pushing the limits of sustainability.
“We are 99 percent off the grid”
Near the island's saltwater flats, the new Belnem House Bonaire is doing its best to reduce its environmental impact. Its solution is a system of solar panels and batteries that power the resort.
Belnem is boutique property with one-bedroom efficiencies on the lower floor and luxury apartments in a second wing. It caters to beach lovers, divers and foodies who come to Bonaire to try its exotic Caribbean cuisine.
All over the property, you'll find evidence of its sustainability efforts — recycling bins, no single-use soaps, and even sustainable toilet paper. But its biggest sustainability initiative is invisible to the average guest.
"We are 99 percent off the grid," says Britt Thomassen, general manager of Belnem House Bonaire.
Belnem installed 250 solar panels on its roof — they're so discreet that they look like part of the building — which generate around 500 kilowatt-hours per day. The hotel stores the energy in a shipping container with 60 heavy-duty lithium-ion batteries with a total capacity of 450 kilowatt-hours for use during the evening.
"It's very challenging to be sustainable in a place like Bonaire," she adds. "This is the kind of place where you have to bring everything from outside. But with the system, we are at least trying to give a little bit back to nature, as best we can. That's good not just for the tourists, but also for the hotel."
Bringing sustainable food to the island
Saeed Lourens, owner of the Nature Cooking School, is promoting a different kind of sustainability in Bonaire, but it may end up being just as important as saving the reefs or reducing its carbon footprint.
Bonaire imports almost all of its food from elsewhere, but Lourens wants to change that. He's on a mission to persuade Bonairians to grow their own vegetables and learn how to prepare them.
Lourens tends to his own small vegetable garden, which contains rows of plants that can grow on a desert island. There's a variety of banana, guava, corn, and a small cucumber that's native to the islands.
"We're really planting an ecosystem to help grow these plants," he explains.
The idea is to inspire students, who range from curious tourists to disadvantaged youth, to grow and prepare their food and still eat well. Lourens demonstrates by cooking lunch in the school's kitchen. The menu includes rice and beans with peas and papaya, and veggie burgers made from beetroot and sweet potato.
"I think more than anything, I want people to reconnect with nature after they've been to one of my classes," he says.
Lourens is in the process of moving the Nature Cooking School to a new location and hopes to open a plant-based restaurant on Bonaire soon. But its sustainability is a struggle on this island. Even though the benefits are obvious, the price is high and the outcome is never guaranteed.
Will tourists go out of their way for homegrown, plant-based food? Lourens says he hopes so.
A long way to go to becoming sustainable
Truth is, Bonaire still has a long way to go before becoming a truly sustainable destination. The reefs are still badly damaged, despite significant progress in restoring them. There are no other hotels off the grid yet. And Lourens' plant-based cooking school is still taking root.
Femke Schut, the owner of QVillas at Villa Kas Koral, a vacation rental company in Bonaire, says she's tried to make her rentals more sustainable by adding solar panels. But sometimes, it feels like a struggle, especially when her guests leave the air conditioning running all the time, even when they are out for the day.
"I've been here for 20 years, and sometimes it's hard to be for the environment," she admits.
Schut is eager to see the government get more involved in sustainability. She also wishes guests would do their part, even though they are on vacation. But on Bonaire, it's becoming increasingly clear that for sustainability to succeed here, it has to become everyone's problem.
