Fundacion Parke Nacional Aruba (FPNA) executes her responsibilities as a nature conservation organization. In doing so, high-impact activities in FPNA management areas – including Parke Nacional Arikok – are monitored and regulated. FPNA introduced their new policy with regards to ATV’s, UTV’s and SUV’s. They ban ATV’s which came into effect June 1st, 2020 and restricted the number of UTV’s and SUV’s as of June 1st, and ban UTV’s as of October 31st, 2020.
Where necessary – and in accordance with national legislation and FPNA’s articles of association – management measures and actions are taken to safeguard the nature under the organization’s protection and care. Monitoring and surveying high impact activities is a necessary management policy. Hence in 2019 and 2020, FPNA surveyed the impact of off-road driving (ORD) in Parke Nacional Arikok. In 2019 the entrance of Shete was closed to reduce the impacted area, with Conchi remaining accessible via the main entrance at San Fuego. Furthermore, surveys carried out in 2019 and 2020 illustrate the continuing social and ecological environmental damage being caused by ORD. The impacts recorded from 2018 to 2020 were: – Dust Impact on vegetation – Sedimentation in rooi systems – Terrigenous sedimentation in the adjacent Marine Protected Area (MPA Arikok) – Unauthorized Road Creation and Road Widening – Covid-19 park closure’s positive impact on Flora and Fauna of Parke Nacional Arikok – Presence Protected Fauna & Protected Fauna Roadkill – ORD engine oil spill in Parke Nacional – ORD accidents in Parke Nacional Arikok Based on these preliminary findings, further research is being carried out for other environmental impacts, and adhering to the precautionary principle, FPNA has developed a new policy for ORD in Parke Nacional Arikok in order to mitigate the high impact of ORD. This new policy has been in effect since June 01, 2020 and can be found on the FPNA website – www.arubanationalpark.org – under the title ‘Policy Document. Managing Nature Conservation and High Impact Motorized Traffic’ (FPNA, May 2020). Source: https://www.arubanationalpark.org/.
