Krazyskier, the locals will say anything. How can the reefs be getting "better and better" with increased diver pressure, pollution, fishing, bleaching and eutrification? I'm no biologist but I've been going to Bonaire for the past 13 years and have noticed a slow inexerable decline each visit. The fish diversity may still be good but the corals have visibly deteriorated. There are areas on Klein that are now just rubble where there was healthy coral in the past. Town, pier, which was one of the great dives in the Carribean, was wiped out by a hurricane.
The assertion that "the locals will say anything" is a gross generalization at best. I'm pretty sure that the paraphrased collective quote that some locals feel "the reefs are getting better and better every year" means that they've observed that the reefs are healthier today than they have been at other times in recent years. I'm not a local, but I've been visiting Bonaire for 16 years and I too think things are looking up.
Shallow water hard and soft corals are slowly recovering from wave damage due to hurricanes Lenny (1999) and Omar (2008). This wave damage is also the primary source of the "rubble" found on Bonaire and Klein Bonaire. Sea fans and other soft corals are returning to the reef drop-offs. Staghorn and elkhorn hard corals are growing again. Buddy Dive's coral nursery and collaboration with the the Coral Reef Foundation have been a great help to this end. Sewage treatment facilities have been built and are replacing the practice of dumping raw sewage in open pits. Plastic, paper, metal, glass, and batteries are now being recycled instead of being dumped into pits. Red algae and coral bleaching continue to be a problem, but it remains to be seen whether the underlying cause of this is local or global. Personally I think the reef impact from divers is generally negligible compared to the other stressors mentioned. I'm no scientist but I see no detectable diver-caused differences between reef health on oft-dived sites (like Bari Reef or 1000 Steps) and seldom-dived sites (such as several unmarked southern and northern sites.)
Town Pier wasn't "wiped out" by a hurricane. Some of the piling were damaged by waves generated by Omar in 2008 and were repaired shortly afterwards. Town Pier remains closed to diving due to increased cruise ship traffic and post 9/11 security measures required by US Coast Guard regulations to keep the port open for US-based vessels. The pier itself was hosting a healthy variety of reef life less than a year after the damage from Omar. See
this link for more info and photos.
Reef life on Bonaire isn't perfect, but it's Pretty Damned Good and trending better and better in my book. But hey... I'll say anything.
And don't ask about the dengue situation , It is all but impossible to get a true read on actual cases etc . , It is the main reason I have not been back after getting hit in 09 .
What is the point of this comment in context to the discussion in this thread? Is this a continuation of "the locals will say anything" theme, perhaps implying there's some sort of cover-up etc. by Bonaireans regarding dengue?
It's no secret that Bonaire has mosquitoes, including dengue-carrying Aedes aegypti. Dengue Fever and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever aren't required to be reported to the government by law, so it's not surprising that it's tough to get a true read on actual number of cases... even if all cases were diagnosed by medical professionals, which they aren't. Bonaireans obviously get dengue fever too. Many of them can't afford screened windows or insect repellent with DEET... or afford to live elsewhere.
