lectures for vocational students.

Similar to last year, Ms Martis invited Reef Care Curacao to give lectures to her students. These students attend the public SBO "Ban Bria" in Willemstad. That is a secondary vocational training for tourism. The students range from 16 to 24 years old.

On April 6,7 and 12 -2005, Reef Care Curacao spent most of the mornings at school. The topics to review were polution, marine life and tourism. Based on the paper of Gerard van Buurt we elaborated the types of polution, the obvious matters they can see daily, as well as the links with foreigners tourism.

To the surprise of many youngsters we positioned also the local population as tourists in respect to going to the beach and into the water. The natives are the fishes and coral species.

As an example we explained that using anchors is not always the best sulotion. The CDOA members pereferrable use one of the 80+ bouys. This is a voluntary program, and the dive operators, together with the local department of fishery cover the funding and maintenance.

An other tourism related topic is coral spawning. Each year, Curacao is packed by divers from around the world to admire the coral reproduction. Thus, keeping the underwater life healthy, means a direct benefit for the tourism providers.

Reef Care Caracao is glad that approx. 120 students got a better understanding of the marine live which surrounds the island's habitat.