According to the Amigoe, the Bonairean gov appealed the earlier decision of annulling the building permit. The appeal was dismissed & it appears that now the local Bonaire government has the job of dismantling the already started buildling.
No doubt a major win for the environmentalists.

Thanks for the info Vince

Folks, to read the article visit: http://www.amigoe.com/english/ it is about halfway down the page.

Hooray for the environment! cb

And hooray for Bonaire not being a banana republic after all (or all the way).

At least now they know they cannot play their corrupt games without being stopped.

They arranged the land lease, the building permit & all they needed within a day; thank God they where stopped before the island suffered structural damage. Shame on them.

Ahh - so the building was already started - well maybe they can dismantle it and ship it to the other side of the island to join the never ending (hasn't been worked on in years) hotel project near Esmeralda.

I really wish someone would tear that eyesore down by Esmeralda. How long has it been there, 15 years?
Absolutely horrible. The last time I passed by, there was graffiti on the walls & god knows what else inside.

These are the folks that stole beach sand for road work, permitted an additional floor to be constructed on Belmar and continue to approve large projects without the benefit of an infrastructure to support the load. I suspect it will be some time before they clean up the mess they made at the mangrove site and who knows what they've got going in the back room.
Well at least they got a slap.

If they provide an Environmental Impact study to prove the project is "safe" the permit could possibly be renewed but I don't think that will occur. They are on protected wetlands right now and that is a "no no".

To dismantle the partially built structure might be harmful to the environment over there, too....the cement dust and all could get into the wetlands, mangroves and waters which would not be a good thing.

Someone recently suggested that they/the government convert the existing area into a spot for local folks to picnic and add swings and things like that for kids to use. No need to dismantle or destroy the partially built existing structure. Just put a ramada type roof over the top and be certain it is safe for folks to utilize, etc. It was just a thought my friend had mentioned to the Commissioner of the Environment of Bonaire the other day. Just something to think about. cb

what is the name of the international agreement that prevented this from going forward..Ramsah or something??

RAMSAR check out their web site http://www.ramsar.org/

From http://www.amigoe.com/english/ 13 Sept, 2007

Clarinda claims 24 millions for Mangrove Village

KRALENDIJK – The director of Crown Court Estate (CCE), Angelo Clarinda, claims compensation of 23.7 million guilders from the island territory of Bonaire for damages he said he suffered, when the construction work for the project Mangrove Village was stopped.

Breaking down the 23.7 millions, it comes to 1.9 millions immediate damages and 21.8 millions for loss of profit for the project. Clarinda wants the 1.9 millions as per immediate, while he is willing to negotiate the amount of the loss of profit. The BC is busy seeking judicial advice and won’t pay yet. The claim is from May of this year.

Sources within the BC mentioned that the letter with the request for compensation is not considered yet. They are awaiting judicial advices, while in the future, the BC will pay extra attention to the Milieu Effect Rapports (MER) that are submitted. The BC has given the property and building permits to CCE based on the submitted MER. The permit was annulled due to an inadequate MER. Developer Clarinda was not available for comments this morning.

Wow! 22 million NAF profit on a small project like this! Way to go, Angelo!

Here's more and possibly the final news on this topic.

Annulment of decisions for building near Ramsar site on Bonaire was justified.

On 11 September Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has signed a royal decree rejecting the appeal by the Government of Bonaire against the annulment by the Governor-General of the Netherlands Antilles of the decisions by the Government of Bonaire to approve a resort to be built immediately adjacent to the mangroves of "Het Lac", a Ramsar site since 1980 (nr 199).

On invitation by the Government of Bonaire, Dr Peter Bridgewater, then Secretary General of the Ramsar Convention, visited Bonaire on 18 -20 April 2006 to advise on possible developments around Lac. His conclusions were that the limited developments up to now were manageable but should be monitored. "Further development would seem inadvisable in close proximity to the lagoon, but should such development wish to be pursued, then full environment Impact procedures, according to the Ramsar guidance should be undertaken by the developer as part of the considerations by the Bonaire Government. Lack of such assessment would be a clear breach of the commitments under the Convention."

On 4 May 2006 the Bonaire Government wrote to a developer that for the approval of his request for a long-lease adjacent to Lac he should first supply an EIA report before his request could be honored. The EIA report was provided to the government on 15 May 2006. It would be obvious that this report would be grossly lacking – in fact it was a copy-paste action from preliminary study by someone else for a different project. Notwithstanding negative advise on this report, the government approved the request for a long lease and afterwards issued building permits, which were immediately used by the developer.

Upon a petition by a local NGO, the Governor-general of the Netherlands Antilles, who has an oversight function to ensure that decisions by local governments are not contrary to Kingdom and International law, first suspended on 4 October 2006 and then annulled on 3 January 2007 the decisions by the island government for issuing the long lease and the building permits. The basis for this annulment was that the decisions were contrary to the Ramsar convention, primarily by the lack of an EIA according to Ramsar guidance.

On 1 February 2007 the Government of Bonaire appealed this decision to the Crown. One of the of the issues brought forward by the Government of Bonaire was that according to them the resolutions concerning EIA's in Ramsar were not legally binding.

In the Kingdom of the Netherlands the advise about these appeals to the Crown are given by the Council of State. The Council of State advises the Dutch government and parliament on legislation and governance and is the country's highest administrative court. On 26 July 2007 the Council of State submitted its advise stating that the appeal against the decision of annulment by the Governor-General was unfounded. The Kingdom Government accepted the advice by the Council of State on 24 August.

One interesting position of the Council of State was that resolutions, decisions and guidelines accepted unanimously by the Conference of Parties to the Convention, a body established by the Convention and which includes representation by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, should be considered part of the obligations under the Convention.

Thanks Susan, I very much appreciate you continuing to post updates on this news item.

Thanks for the information, Susan. Hope this is the last nail in the "coffin". cb