The St. Maarten Nature Foundation on Monday launched an online donation campaign where the community can contribute to showcasing St. Maarten’s unique nature and the need to protect it via a specialized public service announcement. Last year world renowned wildlife photographer Mauricio Handler spent two weeks on St. Maarten filming and recording St. Maarten’s Nature and the work being done in order to protect it. The visit resulted in the making of a brief, two-minute video highlighting the beauty of nature on St. Maarten and the need to protect it; “We had this idea supported by the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance to make a promotional video highlighting the beauty of St. Maarten Nature both on land and below the sea. The images were recorded by the very famous Mauricio Handler and we were able to make an excellent short video. The idea now is to get as much community support through donations to show the video in the preview section of the movies and on local cable TV in order to educate and enlighten the community of the need to protect the beautiful nature surrounding us,” commented Tadzio Bervoets of the Nature Foundation.
The Foundation is appealing to the community to go to the Nature Foundation Indiegogo website https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/environmental-awareness-psa-s-in-st-maarten/x/8608605 or via the Nature Foundation Facebook page and make a contribution in order to realize the project. There are also perks for those who donate, such as a digital photo album of St. Maarten Nature, Scuba Diving Tours and Classes and Environmental Boat Trips in the Mullet Pond section of the Simpson Bay Lagoon. “We hope to mobilize the community in order to realize our goal of five thousand dollars in order to show that Nature is, and should always be, our Future,” concluded Bervoets.