Bolama (island)
| Bolama | ||
|---|---|---|
 Bolama in the east |
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| Waters | Atlantic Ocean | |
| Archipelago | Bissagos Archipelago | |
| Geographical location | 11 ° 34 '28 " N , 15 ° 30' 57" W | |
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| surface | 65 km² | |
| Residents | 6024 (2009) 93 inhabitants / km² |
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| main place | Bolama | |
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Bolama is an island in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of West Africa. It belongs to Guinea-Bissau . The main town is the city of Bolama , which has almost 5000 inhabitants and was the capital of the then Portuguese colony of Portuguese Guinea until 1941 .
geography
The island is the closest to mainland Guinea-Bissau in the Bissagos Archipelago on the West African shelf of the Atlantic Ocean . It is about 65 km 2 in size. On the eastern coast is Bolama , the port and capital of the same name in the Bolama administrative region . The island has 6024 inhabitants. It is almost entirely surrounded by mangrove forests and is known for its cashew nuts .
History / politics
Bolama was uninhabited when the British colonialists arrived in 1792. After a series of failures, the British ended their attempts to colonize the island in 1794. In 1814 another attempt at colonization failed.
Portugal also claimed Bolama in 1830. In 1860 the British declared the island to be part of what was then a colony of Sierra Leone . In 1870, however, a commission chaired by Ulysses S. Grant Bolama awarded the Portuguese. As a result, the city of Bolama became the first capital of Portuguese Guinea in 1879 , but lost this function to Bissau in 1941 .
Economy / tourism
The island later became an important stopover for seaplanes . A statue in the island's capital commemorates a crash in 1931.
1986–2003 an aid project for boat building and fishing was operated on Bolama by the Belgian development aid organization "Iles De Paix" .
Both the sandy beaches and the former governor's palace are worth seeing. The island is a recognized biosphere reserve . The government of Guinea-Bissau is seeking recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site . A dam connects with the Ilha das Cobras .
Despite international efforts to protect the natural environment on Bolama, the government of Guinea-Bissau signed a contract with a Spanish company that plans to use the island as a site for a ship dismantling facility . As a result of this contract, signed on October 17, 2002 in Curuña, Spain, protests arose due to reporting and public relations work. The project is resolutely rejected by the population of the region, but also by environmental and nature conservation associations and non-governmental organizations . The contractual partners were asked to stop planning the system and to refrain from carrying out the project.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Inhabitants by region, sector and town by gender, 2009 census (p. 63), PDF access from the INE National Statistics Office of June 19, 2018
- ↑ List of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves , accessed on January 29, 2009.
- ↑ Industrial center for the dismantling of ships in engl. Language. Retrieved January 29, 2009
