‘I spent three months in the Washington Slagbaai National Park on Bonaire, together with three other students of Forest and Nature Conservation. We measured the growth of the goat population and their impact on the vegetation. Grazing by wild goats has a negative impact on the natural vegetation, causing the Cereus columnar cacti to disappear, for instance. That is why it is importance to seriously reduce the numbers of goats in future.
By walking 250 transects of 100 metres and counting the goats on them, I established the density of the goat population in the park. The original idea was to walk longer transects. That plan was adjusted as soon as we saw how dense the vegetation was. We had to hack our way through it.
I liked the fact that we embarked on this project in a group of four students, even though I didn’t know the other students beforehand. After just a few days we were getting on fine and we helped each other a lot with the fieldwork. During our research period we lived in a little house at the entrance to the park. After 5 o’clock we had the park to ourselves. That really was supercool. We felt like kids in a playground. It meant we could do things in the evenings too, like climbing hills, fishing and barbecuing. If we were tired after a long day’s fieldwork we often went to an idyllic beach to relax and go snorkeling. There were countless species of small fish there, as well as sharks, stingrays, turtles and gorgeous coral. The night skies were tremendous too. I lay looking at them for hours.
The atmosphere on the island was relaxed and people were very friendly. They always say poco poco, which means ‘take it easy’. That is not so practical if you want to get something arranged, but you do get used to that relaxed atmosphere. When I got back to the Netherlands the busyness took a bit of getting used to, especially on the roads.
I would certainly like to go back to Bonaire one day. I thought the island had a magical atmosphere and I wasn’t bored for a single moment.’