Zeehondencrèche Lenie 't Hart

This morning I saw the season’s first spoonbills flying over. What beautiful birds. They come to the Netherlands to breed and forage near our home. That is in the Dollard, where soon common seal pups will also be born. However, that won’t be for a couple of months, but the spoonbills are there already.

Beautiful.

When I see these gracious birds it reminds me of Mauritania, because these same spoonbills go there to spend the winter. When I went there I saw these world citizens there too. Mauritania has a long coastline where “the Sahara drops into the ocean”. A part of that coast is made up of rocks with caves where a rare species of seal lives: the endangered Monk Seal. However, another part of that coast is similar to the Wadden Sea coast and has sandbanks just like in the Wadden Sea.

That area is called Banc d’Arguin.

For over fourteen years, we have been working with Mauritanian biologists and vets to help young Monk Seals that have run into trouble. Over the years, we have built up strong ties with the Mauritanians and especially with a women’s group, the NGO “Mauritania 2000”.

This organisation came into contact with us through the Monk Seal. With a little bit of our help, they started up a large women’s project for the wives of the local fishermen, to help solve their extreme poverty and unemployment. Women have been taught to process the fish, which before, their husbands could not sell. Over 2000 women now have an income for their families. They cook, dry and smoke fish, make fish oil and sell all these products.

Great! And the Monk Seal has become their mascot.

I travelled through Banc d’Arguin with the leaders of this women’s group to see for myself what problems the local population face. It is really shocking. European, especially Dutch, wildlife protectors have thought up ways to protect the overwintering birds: The local people are not allowed to fish using a boat, because this will scare the birds, they are not allowed to catch cockles, even by hand, because that would harm the birds, and so on.

It made me so angry to see.

A big building has been erected, with a windmill and lots of aerials for the many kinds kind of nature conservationists who can be found running around there. They look out for the needs of the birds, but leave the local people to rot. Outrageous! In the village, adjacent to the building, the locals don’t have any facilities whatsoever and when they need to visit a doctor they must travel many hours through the desert with their children. I was deeply ashamed.

If I lived there, I know just what I would do: I would eat all the birds so they would never be able to visit the Netherlands again.

I have great admiration for the local people, because they still love the birds and would not eat them despite what is going on. But it is not done, as wildlife protection society, to only look after the animals in a specific area. With the seals, we have learnt a long time ago that you will only achieve something if you involve the area’s local communities. Nature conservationists must make sure that the local population also has good living standards. And if you aren’t able to achieve that on your own, involve the NOVIB or some other relief organisation.

Or, involve the international fishery; that is what we did.

Thanks to the NOVIB and the SRRC, over 2000 women along the coast and in Banc d’Arguin have work, but there is still a lot to do. Ad Corten, a Dutch fishery biologist, who works in Mauritania a lot, wrote in the magazine Visserijnieuws (Fishery News) about the protection of the birds: “...The political question, of course, is whether the Mauritanian people should pay the price for this.” (To read the whole article, click here.)

In any case, the spoonbills still have faith in the Netherlands, because I have already seen them again.

But do we really care for the animals so much better here?...

03-29-2009 Source: SRRC Lenie 't Hart