Death of a Coral Reef

Great Guana Cay is a thin, six mile island in the Northern Bahamas.

The island's inhabitants, who settled here 200 years ago, are employed in fishing and cottage industry tourism.

The island's coral reef is of international importance as one of the most intact surviving elkhorn/staghorn coral communities in the world.

The inhabitants began fighting tooth and nail to save their island's coral reef and mangroves from destruction after hearing of plans for a golf megadevelopment on their tiny barrier reef island.

Hundreds of the world's most revered coral reef scientists and marine ecologists, as well as almost every single Bahamian environmental organization, have banded together to try to stop the Baker's Bay Golf & Ocean Club (Discovery Land Company) from realizing completion.

The proposed 585 unit, 180 slip marina, tennis courts, hotel, destination spa and championship golf course were pushed through the Bahamian central government with no local consent and without proper permits in a land grab (including of local public land designated for use by Bahamians) of unbelievable proportion. In one of the most amazing and unique environmental stories in history, the islanders have brought the developer, and the Bahamian government, to task. The small island is now waging a bitter legal battle with the government and the developers.

Rise Up Sweet Island compiles the viewpoints of the Bahamian and international marine conservation community and presents documents, evidence and history for all interested parties.

Notes from the Road is a travelogue which covers environmental and cultural issues around North America, the Caribbean and Europe.

National Geographic Magazine supports anti-Megadevelopment movements in Abaco and Bimini in new article on shark conservation.

ReEarth
SharkLab
Restrict Bimini Bay
Mangrove Action Project
Global Coral Reef Alliance
Caribbean Conservation Corps
Notes from the Sea

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75% of Bahamians on Great Guana Cay signed a petition this winter against Baker's Bay Club. Three years later, resistance is strong.

<a href="https://erikgauger.wufoo.com/forms/rise-up-sweet-island-comments/" title="Rise Up Sweet Island Comments">Fill out my Wufoo form!</a>

Photo courtesy Lory Kenyon.
This image depicts the golf course site to be built. In the foreground is the bonefish flats and the mangrove system, one of the last of its type in the Bahamas.

No sane coral reef ecologist will tell you this golf course can be built without destroying the reef.

I asked Kathleen Sullivan Sealey "I understand that there is some controversy regarding the development. Why is Michael J. Risk wrong in his assessment, and why are you right?"

She responded, "I don't think Mike Risk really disagreed with anything in the EIA, he said the EIA was good, he just doubted that the developers would follow through."

But everybody knows that is not true. Mike Risk pointed out serious deficiences in the EIA, especially pertaining to the fact that it contained almost nothing about the coral reef!

So how could Sullivan Sealey...possibly...say that?

It is unfathomable that Kathleen Sullivan Sealey did not read Dr. Risk's assessment.

But if she did, how could she possibly tell me otherwise?

It gets worse. Tom Fazio, the golf course designer, in an article for Executive Golfer, is actually suggesting that "I plan to maximize ocean views by placing eight holes in and around the ocean, three on the Sea of Abaco and five on the Atlantic."

Whether he means that he intends to build holes in the ocean, as in on top of the coral reef, or with a good view of the ocean both suggests the developer is not intending to follow through with its EIA plans. The golf course would have to be designed with crafted hills on either side, to keep as few nutrients from escaping as possible.

Despite the impossibility of saving the reef even with crafting hills to control the flow of nutrients, the golf designer, at this late stage in the game, appears clueless about the minimum ecological requirements for designing a golf course adjacent to a coral reef.

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