SINT MAARTEN (GREAT BAY) - St. Maarten marine conservationist and environmental policy specialist Tadzio Bervoets will be a featured speaker at the Caribbean Studies Association’s 50th Annual Conference, scheduled for June 1 to 5, 2026, in Kingston, Jamaica.
He will present on the paper “Conservation Colonialism and the Persistence of Fortress Management in the Dutch and French Caribbean,” a contribution that examines how external governance systems, metropolitan policy structures, and donor-driven conservation models continue to shape environmental management in parts of the Caribbean.
The paper argues that conservation governance in the Dutch and French Caribbean remains constrained by externalized leadership, top-down administrative systems, and forms of fortress management that can marginalize local knowledge, community participation, and Caribbean-led institutional development. It calls for stronger institutional autonomy, leadership localization, community co-management, and fuller recognition of Indigenous, Afro-Caribbean, and other local ecological knowledge within conservation policy and practice.
The Caribbean Studies Association, widely known as CSA, is an independent professional organization devoted to the promotion of Caribbean studies from a multidisciplinary and multicultural perspective.
It is regarded as a major forum for scholars, practitioners, artists, writers, and policy professionals working across the Caribbean region and its diasporas. The 2026 meeting in Kingston will mark the organization’s 50th annual conference and will be held under the theme “Caribbean Vibes and Vibrations: Culture, Identity and Development in Transformative Times.”
Persons interested in attending can register through the official CSA conference registration and membership pages, which are listed on the association’s conference information portal. The association also provides conference agenda links, hotel information, travel information, and related updates through its official website.
Bervoets brings more than 18 years of experience working across Small Island Developing States and the wider Caribbean in marine conservation, climate governance, protected area management, and environmental policy. His current roles include Chairperson of the UNESCO IOC Ocean Decade Task Force for Latin America and engagement with the Coral restoration Consortium.
He previously served as the Project Leader at the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund and as Director of the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance and has held a range of technical and leadership roles connected to coral reef conservation, shark protection, marine policy, and community engagement.
His academic background includes a Master of Science, awarded cum laude, in Environmental Resource Management from VU University Amsterdam, with a specialization in coral reef and littoral ecosystem management, as well as a Bachelor of Arts, awarded summa cum laude, from the University of South Florida in International Studies, with minors including Latin America and Caribbean Studies.
Bervoets has also contributed to regional and international conservation discourse through scientific publications, policy work, and public engagement. His record includes peer-reviewed work on seagrass carbon dynamics, elasmobranch conservation, coral reef biodiversity, and large marine protected areas, alongside senior advisory and coordination roles in regional environmental governance.
His upcoming presentation at CSA places questions of power, representation, and institutional control at the center of Caribbean conservation debates. At a time when the region continues to confront climate pressures, biodiversity loss, and uneven governance structures, the paper contributes to a wider discussion on how conservation in the Caribbean can become more locally grounded, socially legitimate, and institutionally Caribbean-led.
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