Mr. Franklin Antoin is a journalist and writer who has been publishing articles on history, culture, heritage, and nature on a daily basis in the Bonaire newspaper Extra since the 1970s. He is also the founder and director of the Bonairean Historical Cultural Foundation Fuhikubo, which aims to safeguard the historical knowledge and cultural heritage of the island.

FuHiKuBo manages the Archivo Boneiru, a collection of books, videos, audio tapes, objects and documents about Bonaire. It also contains a collection of more than 1,000 interviews with residents of the island. By using oral history, the cultural heritage of the island can be stored: “Every life that passes is an archive lost”. The Foundation is a Unesco-affiliated NGO, endorsed by Unesco’s intangible heritage committee.

Saline Verhoeven is a landscape architect, program manager and lecturer trained at the Wageningen University and the Technical University of Delft (Netherlands). She has vast experience with urban design and landscape transformations, working with the Municipality of Amsterdam and design offices like Palmbout Urban Landscapes and B+B urbanism and landscape architecture.

In 2013 she combined working in her own practice S-coop with research at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam and the Faculty of Architecture at TU-Delft, where she focused on regional landscape design, concerning urban planning in relation to the Dutch delta and sustainable food systems.

Since 2017 Verhoeven joined Landschap Noord-Holland, an NGO for nature development. Her expertise: connecting various stakeholders to develop nature and landscape in combination with climate adaptation, peat restoration, cultural history, sustainable agriculture and recreation.

Huibert Crijns MSc, BA (1966) is programme manager restoration and urban development at the city of ‘s‑Hertogenbosch in The Netherlands. Understanding heritage provides inspiring solutions to approach topical issues as climate change and the energy transition. The pioneering approach of the city of Den Bosch in the restoration and development of the city’s fortified heritage resulted in grants from 17 different EU funding programmes. International recognition for the ‘s-Hertogenbosch achievements is reflected in the prestigious European Heritage Award that was awarded by the European Commission and Europa Nostra in 2017.

A graduate from Groningen University, Marieke van Zanten is an architectural historian by trade. She has worked as a heritage specialist and consultant for several organisations; always with the public domain at heart.

As a heritage consultant at Het Oversticht, her focus is on using cultural heritage as a means to tackle the emerging themes and challenges of today. She is a firm believer in the significant role heritage plays in our society. According to Van Zanten, while heritage is known to be mostly about conservation, policy and management, heritage has so much more potential. It can be used as a driver, a binding factor in the search for sustainable solutions to current and future challenges.

Van Zanten is keen to take on projects that require interdisciplinary collaboration and involve working at all scales, from S to XXL. Preferably projects that are not straight forward, because such projects often lead to innovation.

Moderator of the event is Corinne Hofman. Hofman is Professor of Archeology of the Caribbean at Leiden University. She conducts bio-archaeological, ethnohistorical and ethnographic research in the Caribbean with a focus on the Dutch territories (Saba, St. Eustatius, Curaçao). Her projects aim to contribute to the historical awareness and appreciation of cultural heritage in this diverse area. Hofman is a member of the Netherlands Commission for Unesco.