At Beef Island in the British Virgin Islands, a local group had found that a five-star development project would destroy a key natural asset of the island; a salt pond and mangroves area called Hans Creek.  Fishermen and local citizens joined  forces to protect the area.  They had learned about the Great Guana Cay strategy and contacted attorney Save Guana Cay Reef attorney Fred Smith, who started them off on a legal plan to fight the development.

By 2009, the British Virgin Islands golf development had been halted by the locals through the British Virgin Islands court system. 

Shannon Gore, a marine biologist in the British Virgin Islands lamented the decision in the Bahamas, explaining, “Sustainable development has a balance between economic, environmental, socio-cultural and governance components but when there is an imbalance, this simple framework for sustainability becomes skewed and the other components become compromised. Alienating a community or breaking down the socio-cultural component is what happened at Guana Cay and will most likely continue to hinder its developments from ever being truly sustainable. The economic side has probably had a drastic effect on everyone involved, just the cost of litigation alone has probably far exceeded what was in the original budget of the development.”

But, as the locals in the British Virgin Islands won their case, Gore explained, “Because the Guana Cay community came together as one and fought the developer and government, they have led the way for other island communities to stand up and fight for what they truly believe to be as sustainable. Inspired by and following in the footsteps of Guana Cay, the case of the Beef Island development was the first time a group of concerned citizens in the BVI had ever taken a developer and the government to court, and won. While the Beef Island development may not be entirely shut down, it has empowered the community to fight when they believe something is not sustainable for their environment, their culture or the economic welfare of the community.”

In an article in the BVI News, the director for the group that derailed the developer plans, explained the larger significance of the ruling: “[It] sets an example for others throughout the Caribbean that they can be heard when challenging these types of ecologically destructive mega-developments.”

But the Guana Cay case was also inspiring groups across the Bahamas.  During the government’s ‘anchor development’ phase, of which the Baker’s Bay golf development is a product of, the Bahamian government set out to create megadevelopments in every major island chain.  But groups, inspired by Save Guana Cay Reef, were formed around almost every single one of these megadevelopments.  Today, Baker’s Bay is one of the last-standing megadevelopments from the Bahamian government’s megadevelopment policy.

A day later, I am with my wife and son on a beach of mainland Abaco.  I see them on the horizon – Jane is picking up shells and handing them to our boy.  I look away from them, and up at the sky, and there I see it again, the white bird, circling in the wind.

This time, there is no doubt as to what it is – a swallow-tailed kite – a type of hawk known more for Southern Florida and the airstreams above the jungles of Latin America.  Why is it here?

As of October 2010, six years after the project began, Baker’s Bay has begun construction on only six homes, even though pundits had claimed only two years ago that over two-hundred units would be sold by now.  According to contractors working on the project, there are no more contracts for homes in the works, and some are saying that all six units are for Baker’s Bay investors.  This means absolutely no homes are being built for non-investors.
 
Just last month, the parent company for Baker’s Bay saw one of their flagship golf developments, the Spanish Oaks property in Texas, fall to foreclosure.  Some golf analysts are privately saying the industry’s golden era is over, and that perhaps, even, that newer gated communities with hundreds of golf-side megamansions, as a model, is over with.

A few days later, we kept seeing birds we had never seen in the Bahamas before.  I ask a well-known birder in the Abacos why I am seeing swallow-tailed kites in the Abacos, why I’m seeing other strange birds, like a goose that is known to live in Greenland, and which has never been seen before in the Bahamas.  He says the weather has been weird this year. He says the birds got thrown off course, maybe.  That’s one way to put it.  But to get here – to achieve those incredible distances – those hawks and warblers and geese achieved incredibly and unlikely distances - they pointed their wings toward the storm and flew.

As to whether the development will fail or succeed is anybody’s guess.  But to the people of the Abacos, I ask, why not at least consider what might happen to Great Guana Cay if the development fails?  What a lovely restoration project that land would make.  A place for families to plant mangroves, and begin the land anew, to return Great Guana Cay to a place known for the integrity of its coral reef and the beauty of its settlement – not as the place George Clooney visited or where mean, rich golfers swear and honk their golf cart horns.  What a lovely place for a national marine park.  What a lovely place to remind Bahamians that the destiny of places are better realized by the people who live there.  What a great place for the people of the Caribbean to turn to, and to say, this is the place where the people fought to save their coral reef, and who taught us to point our wings to the storm and fly.