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Travels in City and Country
Biography of Tom Goreau
and Global Coral Reef Alliance

Global Coral has played a significant role in the Baker's Bay story. Here is the biography of the organization's president:

Dr. Tom Goreau, President of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, a non- profit organization for coral reef protection and sustainable management, has dived longer and in more coral reefs around the world than any scientist. His father was the world's first diving marine scientist, and he grew up swimming in coral reefs as soon as he could walk. He was previously Senior Scientific Affairs Officer at the United Nations Centre for Science and Technology for Development, in charge of global climate change and biodiversity issues. He has published around 200 papers in all areas of coral reef ecology, and on global climate change, the global carbon cycle, changes in global ocean circulation, tropical deforestation and reforestation, microbiology, marine diseases, soil science, atmospheric chemistry, community-based coastal zone management, mathematical modeling of climate records, visualizing turbulent flow around marine organisms, scientific photography, and other fields.

He developed the method to predict the location, timing, and severity of coral bleaching from satellite data with Ray Hayes. He holds patents with Wolf Hilbertz for new methods for preserving coral reefs from global warming and pollution, restoring marine ecosystems, shore protection, mariculture, and non-toxic methods of preserving wood from marine boring organisms, termites, rot, and fire, in order to increase the lifetime of wood and decrease logging. In 1998 he and Wolf Hilbertz were awarded the Theodore M. Sperry Award for Pioneers and Innovators, the top award of the Society for Ecological Restoration. Dr.Goreau led developing country NGO efforts in marine and climate issues at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), the UN Summits on Development of Small Island Developing States (Barbados, 1994, Mauritius, 2005), and the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002).

Dr, Goreau works with tropical fishing communities around the world to restore their coral reefs and fisheries, especially the Kuna Indians of Panama, the only Native people of the Americas who have preserved their cultural and political independence. He is also a hereditary leader of the Yongu Dhuwa Aboriginal clan of Arnhem Land, Australia, that preserves the oldest creation myth in the world. Of Panamanian origin, he was educated in Jamaican primary and secondary schools, at MIT (B.Sc in Planetary Physics), Caltech (M.Sc in Planetary Astronomy), Yale,Woods Hole


Guana Cay Controversy - get the latest news on RSS Feed
Read up on the issue by the locals themselves
Jean Michel Cousteau
Speaks up on Bakers Bay Development
Bimini Bay Sawfish
Video on Bimini Bay

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
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


Petition

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