Recent aerial imagery of Baker's Bay proves several points we have been making in the past - the lots at Baker's Bay are so tiny, it appears they want to pack them in like sardines in a tin can. And there is nothing wrong with small lots, except in a case like this. Small lots means lots of buildings - 550 are proposed - and that is much too high density for this ecosensitive marine region.

But the aerial images also suggest something else that is quite interesting. Only one home is under construction at Baker's Bay, and one lot has been cleared for construction.

The permit for the first lot is under the name Michael Meldman, the CEO of Discovery Land Company. This means that even in May 2010, it appears that no homes are being built for paying clients. Does anybody know why?

The golf course is in final stages of development. Men in hazmat suits are spraying the course regularly in hopes of turning the sand green with grass. Shouldn't dozens of homes now be under construction? If you have any thoughts on this, reply at Abaco Forum's Rant or on the Great Guana Cay Facebook Forum.

We are also interested in the golf course being built so close to the water. Here, this segment of golf course is placed right on the beach.

The ninth hole at the Baker's Bay golf club. As suspected, the golf course is being built directly adjacent to the beach without sloping to avoid pesticides, pollutants and nutrients from entering the nearshore environment. In the background is Gumelemi Cay and the north end of Great Guana Cay. This area is the beginning of the most critical section of the Great Guana Cay reef.

The EIA stated, "The development design aims to minimize chronic environmental degradation to
the island environment with special consideration to creating a coastal buffer zone, and
minimizing ground water contamination and management of solid wastes and pollutants."

Later, the EIA lambasts developments in other islands where developments are built too close to the shore.

>

But in this image, we see that Baker's Bay, like the developments it lambasts, homes are being built as close to the water line as possible. As we suspected.

New photographs, taken only a few days ago, reveal the extent of devastation by Baker's Bay Club. As early as 2005, Notes from the Road was predicting that the footprint of the Baker's Bay development would be massive. Although the photos below, taken only a few days ago, show a globally important marine area completely transformed by a megadevelopment, you should know that the construction process at Baker's Bay is still in its early phases. Only a handful of the buildings are complete. When Baker's Bay is complete, the only natural area remaining will be the Joe's Creek area, most clearly visible in the 3rd image, lower right.

Compare these photos to the promises of the EIA, which stated, "The 'open space' in the development will help residents appreciate the natural vegetations communities now present on the islands. The diverse coastal coppice and wetlands will be incorporated into the development and golf course design to preserve the unique landforms of the property. This landscaping will rely heavily on native plants and seed stock, with an aggressive program to protect and re-locate the slow-growing native trees. The developers seek to achieve a uniquely Bahamian project.

This image reveals just how close the marina is to the coral reef. You can see reef structures in this image.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Farallon Capital Management is planning a restructure.

Some are wondering whether this could impact Baker's Bay Club. According to sources, Farallon Capital Management has been a key investor in Discovery Land Company projects.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Farallon's assets have declined by 40%. This paragraph seems to indicate that Farallon may cut its real estate assets.

"Other changes could be coming. Farallon's real-estate holdings that declined in 2008 didn't bounce back in 2009 the same way the firm's credit holdings did. Farallon executives have talked about restructuring or selling about $2.5 billion in existing real-estate assets, among other options, a person close to the matter says."

We'll be sure to stay on top of this news and its potential impact on Baker's Bay.

Link to NY Times Blog Post
Link to WSJ Post

Neil Hartnell of The Tribune adds a fascinating detail to the Wilson City Power Plant issue. Hartnell writes, "It had long been speculated that the BEC project was moved to Wilson City because the Snake Cay site was selected for a tourism development, and these documents, which were filed as part of the Government's defence to the Judicial Review action brought against the power plant by Responsible Development for Abaco (RDA), provide the first tangible evidence of this."

Read the rest here:

Read PDF

Dear Readers,

When Save Guana Cay Reef was invited to attend a United Nations conference to speak about their plight, many of them returned to the Bahamas humbled by the event. They were fighting a megadevelopment in an effort to save their reef, but they were speaking alongside groups who were fighting to feed their community or rebuild their towns.

I have always said that Great Guana Cay's issues are not secondary to the issues that seem larger and more immediate. Haiti's layered problems, which led to today's catastrophe are not isolated from the issues we talk about with Great Guana Cay. I have been working to rework this blog to look at Guana's issues in the context of other issues in the Caribbean. I did not expect that one of the biggest events in our hemisphere would change this very conversation.

One of the greatest tragedies has just happened in our backyard. For those of us passionate about protecting the Bahamas, we know that Haitians have enriched our islands with their culture. For those of us passionate about conservation, we know that Haiti's grim history is tied to grave environmental lessons about the Caribbean. For those of us who believe in the Caribbean, this is our moment. There are a million ways to help Haiti now and tomorrow.

We are donating to Doctors Without Borders. We expect to find new ways to help Haiti. A friend of mine, who contributed to the effort to save Guana Cay wrote this today. "It is ironic, but perhaps hopeful, that humans seem to respond to the needs of other humans impacted by dramatic natural disasters in ways that transcend political boundaries and ideaologies.  So, let us hope that efforts to rebuild Haiti will do more than simply replace the physical structures that were destroyed."

Two articles from Virgin Islands Platinum remind us of how far Save Guana Cay Reef's influence has reached. This latest BVI issue involves the building of a giant $200 million dock. Locals worry about its effect on the nearshore coral reefs, and the island's culture. The locals followed in the footsteps of the Hans Creek objectors, whose successful case against a golf course developer was inspired by Great Guana Cay.

Residents Angered at Proposed Nail Bay Development

Public to Have Say on Proposed Development

Save Guana Cay Reef has posted a press release on the Privy Council Ruling:

The following comments result from the Judgment delivered by the Privy Council on November 17, 2009 in the Save Guana Cay Reef & Bakers Bay development continuing litigation saga.

SGCRA is very pleased that they have finally had their day in Court at the Privy Council.

Although  SGCRA is disappointed that the Privy Council did not declare the Heads of Agreement ultra vires and stop the project, SGCRA is still very happy that SGCRA has been able to make a meaningful contribution to the enormous issues affecting the Bahamas by development, especially in the Family Islands where there remains such beautiful and unspoilt land.

The Privy Council noted that;

 “The Bahamas are known throughout throughout the world for  their natural beauty. It is also well known that the rich, natural resources and especially their coral reefs are risk from indiscriminate development”. 

SGCRA is pleased that even  the Privy Council recognized the issue of “indiscriminate development” plaguing the Bahamas.

The Privy Council also noted that regrettably;

 “The Bahamas has no comprehensive legislation for environmental protection, or public consultation on the disposition of public lands…”.

SGCRA joins the continuing chorus calling on the Government to pass environmental laws and a freedom of information act which are sorely needed in The Bahamas  development landscape.

SGCRA is pleased that the Privy Council also recognized that, although the BEST Commission does not exist as a statutory body, the preparation of Environmental Impact Assessments, have “become the usual practice”, and “standard practice” in The Bahamas.
 
SGCRA laments the fact that what should have been a simple judicial review matter and which should have been dealt with quickly, by the Courts in 2005, has taken nearly five years to wind its way through the judicial system. The Privy Council has criticized this process and stated that “These proceedings have followed a tortuous course”.

SGCRA urges the Government and the judiciary, in future, to give priority to the disposition of judicial review proceedings, not only in the protection rights, but for the good administration of public law matters.

SGCRA is very pleased to note that the Privy Council recognized that SGCRA had a “legitimate expectation of consultation” which is an important step  to prevent abuse in the exercise by Government powers and to prevent indiscriminate development.

In this regard, SGCRA was pleased to note where the judgment said “It is unfortunate that the Minister (Allyson Maynard) did not make good her promise of a meeting.”  The Privy Council also noted that consultation should also be “informed”.

The Privy Council judgment is not the end to this fight.

Challenges through the courts have been  only one avenue of challenge. SGCRA will continue to bring domestic and international publicity to this abuse and to the injustice to which the people of Guana Cay were subjected by the delays in the judicial process, the collaboration between the Government and the Developers, the financial pressure brought by Baker’s Bay and the destruction of the environment and the ruination of the peaceful Family Island style life which this $500,000,000 mega anchor development project and Central Government’s dictates and abuse have raped the Cay with.

Save Guana Cay Reef lost its case at Privy Council today.

Here is a quote from Save Guana Cay Reef President Troy Albury on a local forum:

The whole purpose of our fight from the start has been twofold.

1 . to protect the environment - There are no laws on the books in reference to the environment so consequently there is nothing to enforce . So we have to do as Livingston Marshall says – balance the environmental impact - read - destruction with the monetary benefits . So in other words if someone can make money now forget about the environmental impacts later.

2. To be sure that these developments are monitored and that the local residents rights are not trampled and they are consulted on what is going to have a tremendous effect on their lives and wellbeing . Too many things are done in 'under the table' deals . Unfortunately there is no law that says we have to be consulted or even made aware of the these deals. Even the BEST commission which supposedly is supposed to approve and monitor the developments does not exist in law.

So we again call on our government to give us a Freedom of Information Act so there can be transparencies in these deals as well as an Environmental Protection Act to protect our natural resources . Until these two laws are in place we just have to hope that the government and developers will honor all of their promises. But like my mother used to say “ a promise is a condolence to a fool.“

I have no regrets and I am proud of the accomplishments SGCR has made. Countless hours of work by people dedicated to the cause will not go unnoticed. We have made a difference and we will continue to make a difference in the way Bahamians think about their environment and anchor developments.

The Greater Caribbean is a jewel of the Americas, rich with cultures, languages, cuisines, countries, natural beauty and wildlife.  The countries in this vast region, including the Bahamas, rely largely on tourism. 

There are two types of tourism in the Caribbean.  One is home-made, local, small-scale.  The other is big scale tourism, supported by foreign dollars. 

This cruise-ship and mega-development style tourism has been responsible for an array of environmental problems, economic problems and the decline of cultures throughout the Caribbean. There is no finer example of a really awful megadevelopment than the Baker's Bay Club.

We often forget that savvy travelers almost all intuitively understand the dangers of these types of megadevelopments. In the November/December 2009 issue of National Geographic Traveler, cover article "133 Places Rated" surveyed travelers about the changing qualities of the world's best travel destinations. Reading the comments of the surveyees is like reading the brochure for the Baker's Bay Club. Here are the excerpts from the Bahamas:

Eleuthera "A laid-back paradise" for scuba divers and anyone else in search of a "real place" in the islands. Pollution problems are growing, along with the feeling that it is becoming "a pleasant ghetto of the privileged."  

"…However, those who have been going there for 20 years see the changes that new development has brought. Much of this new construction has benefited the local economy, but attention is not being paid to the environmental impacts."

Bahamas: Grand Bahama "True tourism folly—unfinished shells of hotels, tacky shopping areas.""Cruise ship hell," says another panelist. Wealthy outsiders have bought up all the beachfront, leaving nothing for anyone else. "As a result, the locals are extremely bitter."

"Something has gone terribly wrong in the Bahamas. Immensely wealthy tourists (mainly Americans) have bought up all the beachfront; developers have built huge, tacky resorts, and there is nothing left for anyone else."

"Overdeveloped, with the consequent pressures on the environment and social fabric of the community."

"The selling off of 'protected' islands is unconscionable. An unbelievable amount of garbage has washed up on the beaches. 'Locally produced' products in the straw markets are a joke; there should be a quality artisan market."

"A destination dominated by cruise tourism that brings minimum benefits to the local population."

Comments on other Caribbean Islands:

British Virgin Islands:"I have been impressed by the condition of reefs compared to similar higher visitation sites in Hawaii. Tortola has yet to see major changes as a result of cruise-line traffic, but this seems inevitable."

"Small-island ambience has been maintained despite the increased visits of large cruise ships, which stress specific sites. Away from the most touristed beaches, villages remain authentic. Roads are sometimes inadequate when several large cruise ships visit. Outer islands do not have this problem."

"A land of all-inclusive resorts where visitors hardly glimpse the real life of the place. "The quantity of tourism arriving is a very big problem," notes a panelist. One consequence: "Locals are marginalized and desperate, and the experience is exploitive."

"Virtually destroyed by all-inclusive, European-run resorts. Locals are marginalized and desperate, and the experience is either restrictive or exploitative"

"Study in extreme contrasts. There are the slums and there are the high-dollar resorts—with not much else in between. Outside the resorts, the people all seem to be struggling...with poverty, overcrowding, lack of adequate transportation, etc. Inside the resorts, everything is taken care of for the tourists. As a country, the outlook on sustainability is grim. The pollution is awful, with trash along the highways and waterfronts, and vehicles sputtering nasty smoke."

"Environmental and ecological quality threatened by lack of sanitation and solid-waste-disposal systems outside Puerto Plata. Natural lagoons in Cabarete threatened by new hotel and second-residential development. Reef protection off the coast in Montecristi extremely limited. Haitian illegal immigration is displacing Dominicans in hotel construction jobs and placing extreme pressure on local municipalities for the provision of adequate housing and basic services. Crime, drugs, and prostitution have increased in Puerto Plata, Sosua, and Cabarete. Youth unemployment is double the national unemployment rate. Condition of built heritage is also under stress. Puerto Plata's Victorian homes are in complete disarray."

Grenada: "Big beachfront developments in the southern half of the island are "beginning to erode the pristine beauty" and diminish the water quality."

"Small island that is densely populated. There are some nice beaches, but tourist development on the beach front is beginning to erode some of the pristine beauty. In addition, if beachfront resorts continue to be built, this will result in an unintended denial of recreational activities to the local population."

The Grenadines: A string of several hundred islands that once ranked near the top of our ratings has fallen precipitously in the past two years due to dubious land deals with foreign firms and commercialization catering to cruise ships. Still, it is "a beautiful place that overall remains appealing."

"The Grenadines have long fought mass tourism, and so far have not sold out or succumbed to the temptation, despite a few islands falling into private hands for the development of retreats for monied gentry."

"What a pity that the government has sold land owned by future generations to private foreign individuals! Several islands have been sold outright, while islands such as Canouan have over half of their land under private foreign control."

"...and on St. Vincent, a hair-brained scheme to build an airport large enough for jets from Europe is underway, with construction funds coming from questionable sources."

Jamaica: A historic town spared the pollution, crime, and poor planning bedeviling other parts of Jamaica. "Most tourism benefits go to the wealthy, who have walled off the beautiful coast-line." Not sustainable long-term ecologically or socially.

"Resorts tend to deny locals access to the best beaches and coastal areas, which contributes to social problems."

"The rich cultural history is harder to access and is becoming more packaged and commercialized."

"Efforts need to be made to protect Port Antonio in a way that is cognizant of issues of carrying capacity, coastal-zone management, sewage treatment, and solid-waste management. It has not yet been adequately demonstrated that there is a development plan for the area."

St. Lucia "Among the most beautiful and lush of the Caribbean islands," being challenged by an increase in problems—tourist dollars bypassing local people, a lack of environmental controls, too many all-inclusive resorts—that go far to explain a seven-point dip in score in just two years.

"A number of high-end tourist developments have started in recent years, but have been in abeyance due to the global economic recession. Several of these have been undertaken with little regard for environmental conservation and now stand as unfinished eyesores in environmentally sensitive areas."

"St. Lucia is at risk. Its government does not enforce its regulations, and hotel development is taking place entirely uncontrolled. There are significant land- and coastal-zone degradation issues. The island has amazing natural resources that are at risk of being lost if something is not done soon."

"There is not a lot of information for tourists to St. Lucia on protection of the region, but this is par for the course for many Caribbean islands. Locals (local authorities/tourism reps) tell people what they think they want to hear. An example is the island's promotion of ecotourism—but some of the activities, such as swimming with dolphins and off-road ATV tours, are harmful and detrimental."

"Too much emphasis on development of all-inclusive resorts has caused resentment among locals, who do not see how they benefit. Many hotels are not locally owned. Lack of regulation has caused environmental coastal problems and urban sprawl in the wake of the fast growth of the tourism industry. Some small and radical initiatives have attempted to provide benefits to grass-roots communities—trying to get tourists to visit villages, have farmers supply hotels—but this is very small-scale. There is a growing awareness of the damage to the island's culture and environment by the tourism industry, but no obvious commitment or action for change."

"A lovely island. However, the relatively large population and lack of job opportunities have led to low pay scales and crime. With the decline in banana revenues, the island has little alternative than to develop its tourism potential, with the problems related to that."

St. Maarten/St. Martin On the Dutch half of the island, "tourism has gobbled up the culture, which is now defined by the hotel/casino industry." The French side is overbuilt but has avoided so far the "fast-food joints," casinos, and concentration of duty-free shops.

"It is a typical mass-market tourism disaster. The French side has no casinos, fast-food joints, nor high-rises, but it still has problems, mainly too many hotel rooms and overcrowded beaches. I don't know why the hotel industry and cruise-ship companies can't understand the concept of "carrying capacity." More and more hotel rooms and bigger and bigger ships lead to less and less enjoyment and a diminished destination."

"Dutch St. Maarten is in trouble. St. Martin, the French side of the island, is promising in terms of balancing development with the natural resources. The environmental and ecological quality of Dutch St. Maarten is threatened by overdevelopment. The French side of the island is basically intact."
"The threats to the environment are multiple, mainly on the Dutch part of the island. The strong development of tourism without all the necessary measures to address the environment is provoking damages, many irreversible."

"This island presents one of the best examples of what islands should avoid in tourism development. Tourism has gobbled up the culture of the island, which now is defined by the hotels, casinos, and other modern developments—not the island's historical, artistic, culinary, or other local heritage. Quality of life is a major consideration for residents as well as visitors. There appears to be widespread interest in making changes."

In 2005, I challenged myself as an amateur travel blogger to follow the Baker's Bay development issue. For four years, I have challenged my readers to learn more about this topic. There are easier subjects to write about, and there are subjects that would have built my readership up quicker. But I truly believe that online travel writers are a force, perhaps the biggest force, in educating tourists and travelers about the true costs and benefits of different types of tourism.. After blogging about this subject for four years, today I learned that the subjects that I have been blogging about have lost their final battle in court.

There will be many who will expect those of us who believe megadevelopment tourism is bad to simply go away after this loss. But I am committed to following this story to its end, and I am expecting much good to come of all of this. By embracing the subject, I am offering a challenge to other travel bloggers.  I am saying to you: what is travel blogging all about? 

Let me give you a little background.  Great Guana Cay is a tiny islet in the Northern Bahamas, just six miles long by a quarter mile wide.  It is part of a chain of cays in the Abaco Sound; Great Abaco being the giant mother ship island.

In 2004, the Bahamian locals on Great Guana Cay (there are 91 of them, last count) found out that the Bahamian Government had authorized the construction of a mega-development by a California golf company on their island.  The development would be offered the locals' last patch of public land, which was a mangroves area.  The details of the project were incredible: a marina carved out of the mangroves, a landscaped golf course, five-hundred mansions, tennis courts, spas, restaurants.

The locals were shocked, and they started to say, wait, why didn't anybody ask us if this is okay?  And then they started to say, wait a minute, if you build a golf course right next to one of the most important coral reefs in the Caribbean, won't you kill it?  And if you replace the mangroves with a marina, won't you also kill the coral reef?  And what about our little cottage tourism industry?  If you have all those big pink buildings sticking out of our small, natural island, won't you kill the reason why people visit here?

In early 2005, the locals wrote to me because I had covered Guana Cay in Notes from the Road in the past.  I decided to cover the story, and in my first few entries, I realized that this was a defining story for the future of the Greater Caribbean. 

For the next four years, I continued to follow the subject, and the writing, a tiny fraction of the total Baker's Bay opposition, helped bring Jean-Michel Cousteau, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, human rights groups, law groups and dozens of highly qualified international coral groups to the Guana Cay issue.

The story thus far has been, at times, a legal drama, at times a human drama, at times a sad story about another critical ecosystem vanishing before our eyes.  But the story is amazing, because here you have these local people who are housekeepers and fishermen, and they aren't supposed to be together enough to stand up to these foreign megadevelopers.  But somehow, these barefooted locals have managed to make it this far.  They are very colorful people.  Many of them are loyalists, which means they were New Yorkers or Floridians who sided with the Crown in the revolutionary war.  Now, over two hundred years later, their accents are time capsules from that age.  They sound like pirates!  And none of them were environmentalists or legal experts before this, because all they have been trying to do is earn a living for their family.   But this conflict has transformed them into cunning and wise men and women.

There is this idea that the Bahamas is a land of Mr. Howell's and rude package tourism, which is true in only a few isolated places.  The Bahamas is more accurately described as a giant marine wilderness the size of California, punctuated by slender coral islands with rich, unique cultures and a host of problems, overdevelopment and vanishing ecosystems being one of them.

The tiny islands surrounding Abaco are important from a global ecological perspective in that they are host to important diversity that is vanishing elsewhere, due to overdevelopment, rising sea temperatures, overfishing and so-forth.  Whenever you read accounts of Earth's vanishing habitats and the threats to biodiversity, you hear about the Bahamas and the Caribbean.  Ecologists consider this area vital.

So, the question you might be asking is, is the Guana Cay story travel writing? Or is this maybe something for environmental activists or mainstream journalists?

My answer is unequivocal – this is the domain of travel writers, period. Here is why.  The Guana Cay issue is about tourism.  It is about whether cottage and ecotourism or megadevelopments are the future of far off places.  We travel writers are the ones who paint the picture of distant destinations to prospective visitors.  These stories are entirely our beat.  Newspapers, whose staffs are being cut, don't have news bureaus in the Caribbean, or even Miami for that matter.  These stories have all the components of a great news story, but environmental editors, consumed by climate change and other big umbrella issues, simply don't, and won't, write about this sort of thing.

Only travel writers wander into these stories.  They are in our hands.  Science writers, scuba diving industry writers, environment writers, they've got other stuff on their plate.  In the Caribbean, much of the destruction of the coral reefs and mangrove ecosystems is at the hands of the tourism industry.  This is especially true in places like Jamaica, where megadevelopments contributed to declining water quality, and now, almost all of Jamaica's reefs are all algae-ridden and dying.

There is room for other people to write about Great Guana Cay.  And if not Great Guana Cay, then the myriad related issues.  It is important to understand that the resistance that the local's have been causing against the development on Guana Cay is already impacting other parts of the Greater Caribbean.  In the British Virgin Islands, for example, locals followed the Guana model and are now themselves successfully fighting a golf development which would destroy their biodiverse estuary.  In Belize, locals have sought the advice of those working with Great Guana Cay, in a fight to protect Placencia Peninsula.  Most importantly though, the fight against the Baker's Bay development has done more than anything in the Bahamas to embolden the twin goals of government transparency and creating real environmental laws.

Without a conduit of information, these stories; these colorful but critical travel-tourism stories, never get told, and they'll just keep happening over and over again.  But by covering this story with an international audience, I create a conduit out of the Bahamas.   

After four years, I am still the only travel blogger who is covering this story. Today, the local's have lost a major battle, and those of us who have followed them, written about them, and even supported their efforts are now expected to go away.

This, I will never do. But I have a challenge for you travel bloggers. Join me in writing about the impact of megadevelopments in the Caribbean. Join me in covering the Baker's Bay story. The world needs to know this story, and we are the only ones that can tell it.

This story deserves a bigger audience, and I need your help. Travel bloggers, twitter me if want to join in.