After 4 years of going up and down to the Caribbean for many different projects, 2017 brought me to one of the tiniest islands in the area: Saba, Dutch Caribbean. After graduating at Van Hall Larenstein and have worked as a project officer of artificial reefs, I decided to take the job at the Saba Conservation Foundation by being part of the Saba Bank Management Unit.

The Saba Bank is the largest submerged atoll in the Atlantic Ocean which covers an area of 2200 km2. This makes the Saba Bank larger than the Dutch Wadden Sea and the third largest of its kind in the world. The Saba Bank has one of the richest diversity of marine life of the Caribbean Sea, and contributes to the diversity of marine life of surrounding islands like Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Maarten. This large area provides different habitats, with rich coral reefs along the edge, large soft coral forests, and algal fields and sand plains in its midst. With such a large diversity of habitats and species, the Saba Bank supports two of the main incomes of Saba, the fisheries and dive industry. Recently, in 2015 the Saba Bank has been designated as the first Yarari Marine Mammal and Shark Sanctuary of the kingdom of The Netherlands. The Saba Bank Management Unit (SBMU) was set up in 2012 to manage these nature values for sustainable use by current and future generation. My job is to manage the team, support all research, data monitoring and collection, liaise with fishermen and the coast guard, coordinate students and much more.  

I really look forward to many adventures and experiences that I will have here on Saba, and I am very happy to have Guido here at the moment supporting me. It is very nice to have spend some time together and even experience great things as a couple during work.

Proudly announcing my new job to the world: as a project assistant! I will be working on the project of the Artificial Reefs on Saba and St. Eustatius (AROSSTA). I will be starting my career as a Coastal and Marine Management in the Caribbean. In a total of 4 months I am contracted to work with many local organisations in the Caribbean as well as the Netherlands, for this project. Three out of the four months, I will be building and deploying artificial reefs on Saba (Bank) and St. Eustatius together with other students under my supervision. I am looking forward in cooperating with many stakeholders that I have known from previous internships and to develop new skills and expertise. 

In the meantime I met with the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance and the head of the Oceans Unit of the World Wildlife Fund of the Netherlands. The project has had a good start and the future is looking bright. Depending on everyone's effort, the deployment of the reefs may be finished before the end date we had in mind! 


Keep yourself updated through AROSSTA's website and Facebook.

I am proud to announce the second governmental publication of this year! Hard work has finally been starting to pay off. After 1,5 years working on the Queen conch data that I collected during my final internship, the results are finally here.

Governmental reports have always attracted me and are definitely one of my favourites. Although scientific publications in journals may have higher impact rates or whatsoever, with governmental reports you know something is done with it right away or in short-time period. Especially, when talking about small islands like Anguilla or any other in the Caribbean.

Thanking the Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources Management of Anguilla and Erik Boman once again for the great opportunities and time I had on the island. Looking forward to my next visit and we will keep in touch.

Find the publication here, titled: "Summary of Queen Conch (Lobatus gigas) research undertaken in Anguilla and the implications for current management practices ."

Next publication in preparation!

On the 12th of July 2015 I moved to Anguilla to stay for 6 months. In those 6 months I got many opportunities including this one, a publication about one of the offshore days of Anguilla: Sombrero island. Another milestone reached already this early in 2017!

Together with the deputy director and fisheries officer I got to write and review the paper. The paper is very important as a baseline for research in the future to protect the biodiversity in any way possible. The paper is about the rapid analysis of the benthic composition found in the waters surrounding Sombrero island.
Although I am third author, read it as: supervisor, data collection and data analysis trainer. I was happy to introduce my fellow colleagues with the methodologies I have used for my first ever research in the Caribbean.

Looking forward helping preserve Anguilla's biodiversity much more in the future!

​Feel free red to contact me on: ayumikuramae@gmail.com for any questions about the paper.

Soon after the first break of the Wadden Sea symposium in Groningen I headed towards Amsterdam. It was a train ride of nearly 3hrs to reach the city by train, but all worth it.

Many people were invited to the drinks and dinner by Save Our Sharks. Whoever volunteered, worked directly or indirectly with  them was invited for a night of socializing and getting to know new people.

Guido has been working with Save Our Sharks for some time now. I have volunteered with them once to collect signatures for a petition in order to protect the illegal finning and fishing of sharks in the Caribbean. Find and/or sign the petition here! For that reason, they invited me to Amsterdam.

The evening started bright seeing friends again, Stacey, who was working in the Caribbean when I was doing my thesis in St. Eustatius. I got to talk with Linda Ferwerda whom I have never seen in person before but we had a lot of mail contact for the diving blogs that I wrote for her website: Duiken in Beeld.

I was happy to meet Paul Hoetjes for the second time, although he remembered me from my project in 2013 on Saba, my bad memory left me in the dark! Furthermore, I got to talk with Paddy Walker, shake hands with Jorgen Raymann, learn new faces from Stichting de Noorzee, Vroege Vogels and so much more! We closed off the night with a dinner at an Indonesian restaurant.

The day after the Saba Bank Symposium, I headed in the early morning with colleagues from NIOO-KNAW to Groningen. 

The symposium was organised by my supervisor Liesbeth Bakker and Bart Grutter, both from the Aquatic Ecology department of NIOO. The syposium brought both aquatic ecologists and marine biologists to talk about the newly built islands in the Marker Wadden region in The Netherlands.

The symposium was opened by Liesbeth Bakker and Han Olff, a professor from the Rijksuniversiteit of Groningn, and coincidentally also Guido's supervisor of his internship.

Many people attended the symposium, differing from BSc students, PhD's, professors and people from the Dutch ministry.  Many organisations, such as the Natuurmonumenten, Deltares and NIOZ were present. The most interesting talks were from Han Olff (RUG) and Jan van Gils (NIOZ). 

Han Olff presented how it work with "novel ecosystems" and if they exists and how to deal with them in newly man-made areas.

Jan van Gils presented the bird-aspect of the whole Marker Wadden project, the impact on the birds in the past few years here in the Netherlands and how important our country is to birds who migrate all the way down to Mauritania.

It was good to meet new people from other institutes and organisations. As a newly graduated BSc student I was happy to attend such an important symposium. 

Soon after the break I left towards Amsterdam for the next meeting: Save Our Sharks! Read more next time!

Wageningen University and Research organised a symposium in Den helder on the 8th of december 2016. The symposium was held at the theather named De Kanpaje. The main reason of the symposium was to inform attendants about all the research that took place in the past 5 years on the Saba Bank by many different governmental and non-governmental organisations.

Saba Bank is a very unique and pristine submerged atoll in the Caribbean and the third largest of the world. With a 2,680 square kilometer in size with depths ranging between 20 to 50 metesr of depth, the bank provides many resources (e.g. fisheries) to the communities on the surrounding islands as a hotspot of biodiversity.

Research institutes such as Wageningen Marine Research, formally known as IMARES, has been doing a lot of research on the bank the past 5 years. From making a benthic mapping, trying to find new species, and placing acoustic loggers for sharks and marine mammals. For this, the symposium was organised in order to bring people together, from students and members of the ministry, and inform about the accomplished goals and the results of the researches. The day started at 10:00 and finished at 17:30. Guido and I  (and many other friends and theachers of my school) were present that day. Similar research about the queen conchs that I did back in Anguilla, was presented by Martin de Graaf. Guido's supervisor, Erwin Winter, presented the results of the research that Guido has been doing around Saba for his thesis. We all got the chane to speak with many different people who we already knew and catch up with everyone's work. 

Finally, the day was closed with a discussion board in which all presenters discussed what the next step is for the Saba Bank Research. We got a book with the printed work of the Saba Bank with some really beautiful pictures on it. If interested a copy of the book can be downloaded here in PDF:

http://edepot.wur.nl/400224 (Dutch)
http://edepot.wur.nl/400225 (English)

Overall: a very informative day!

By the new students of the BSc course Coastal and Marine Management at Van Hall Larenstein, University of Applied Sciences, I was asked to write a short column about my thesis that I did in the Caribbean. The flyers were printed and used for the open day at the university and attract students to study the bachelor's course that I have studied! How great!

My thesis was about the severity of solid waste on the coastal areas of St. Eustatius, part of the Dutch West Indies in the Caribbean. We reviewed the current waste management present on the island and we assessed how the waste is influencing the coastal areas of this beautiful island. At the end, our report can be used as a guideline for future reference how the local government could improve their waste management.

It is written in Dutch but if you are interested request for an English version by email: ayumikuramae@gmail.com
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