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Nature Foundation and Réserve Naturelle signed cross-border conservation agreement in 2025
The Nature Foundation Sint Maarten and the association managing the Réserve Naturelle de Saint-Martin signed a memorandum of understanding in March 2025 and celebrated it publicly on 30 June 2025, allowing the two reserve managers to share staff, data and projects.
By SXM Daily ·
Reported 2 July 2025.
The Nature Foundation Sint Maarten (NFSXM) and the Association de Gestion de la Réserve Naturelle de Saint-Martin (AGRNSM), the main nature reserve managers on the two sides of the island, signed a memorandum of understanding in March 2025. According to the Nature Foundation's release of 2 July 2025, the agreement was celebrated publicly at a ceremony on the Great Salt Pond's birding platform on the morning of 30 June.
Illustrative: the Great Salt Pond. Photo: Anne and David / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
According to the release, the agreement allows the two organisations to share staff, exchange data and carry out research and educational programmes together. National rules and red tape between the two countries had previously made it hard for them to align their work formally.
Early results
The Nature Foundation said staff exchanges since March had raised human-resource capacity by up to 60% for activities such as underwater reef monitoring and public education events. It said the two groups now often responded within minutes to cross-border reports of environmental crimes or distressed wildlife, and had jointly applied for their first regional project.
The memorandum grew out of nearly two years of closer cooperation through NFSXM's CORENA project and AGRNSM's ReCorEA project, both of which mapped and monitored mangroves, seagrass beds and coral reefs.
Who signed
NFSXM board chairman Binkie van Es and AGRNSM board president Anne-Karine Fleming signed the agreement. Directors Leslie Hickerson of NFSXM and Julien Chalifour of AGRNSM attended. In a joint statement, the organisations said the island's ecosystems do not recognise political borders but are strongly affected by differences in the two countries' environmental policies, and called the agreement "long overdue".