Rum Cay Development Fails
September 19, 2008

Guana Cay Granted Conditional Leave for Privy Council
Freeport Tribune reports | August 12, 2008

According to the Tribune, Save Guana Cay Reef has been granted leave for the Privy Council. Fred Smith is quoted in the article, "We believe we have a very strong case, and have been denied due process. The issue of the ability of the Prime Minister to bind the country as to Heads of Agreement will be determined at the highest level...for the future development of the Bahamas, these are matters which are of fundamental importance."

Open Letter to Megastar Cher from Great Guana Cay
After megastar escapes from 'Moonscape' Baker's Bay Club | August 12, 2008

Dear Cher,

We are the Bahamian citizens of Great Guana Cay, which you visited last month.

Our ancestors have lived on this island for 200 years.  We are proud of our tiny island, with its smiling people, lovely visitors, its blue water, its white beaches.

The decisions Hollywood celebrities make affects wildlife and small countries immensely. Megastar Cher, after visiting Baker's Bay Club, realized the development was an environmental catastrophe.

We are proud of our old loyalist architecture, of our diverse and colorful settlement, the gardens we create, our lovely moon-shaped harbor.  We are especially proud to have one of the Caribbean's most spectacular coral reefs - stunning elkhorn and staghorn structures which are home to brilliant angelfish, wily soldierfish, shimmering sardines in our networks of underwater caves.  We are proud of our many species of sharks.  We hold especially dear our three species of sea turtles that nest on our shores each year.  Their offspring will travel the world by ocean current, but they will have been born here, and they will return here.

We are proud of our migrating birds – dozens of species of warbler, bright marsh birds feathered in green, blue and ochre, kestrels, bananaquits, even glossy ibises.  We are proud, even, of our mangroves and our deep-rich forest, filled with delicate orchids and primeval bromeliads, and flowers found in few other places around the world.  This jungly place produces plenty of mosquitoes, yes, but the mangroves that sustain mosquitoes are necessary as part of our unique ecosystem.  Mangroves are the nursery of the coral reef, and mangroves also keep our island intact. 

And, it takes a sort of unique person to like a place like Great Guana Cay.  It's not for everyone, and we've understood that ever since our ancestors toiled for conch and sisal, and settled in this distant outpost of the western hemisphere.  Small spaces, and particularly small islands, make for unique living conditions - it boxes some people in.  We thrive here because we love our neighbors and because we see the ocean as part of our backyard, not as our limits.

We understand that you had a horrible time at the Baker's Bay Golf & Ocean Club development property, which is under construction on the northeastern end of our tiny island.  We agree, what you described as a moonscape used to be our island’s mangroves before it was slated to become a golf course and marina to the rich and famous.

You are not alone.  For three years, we, the Bahamian residents of this island, have been fighting the Baker's Bay Club on the grounds that it will devastate our sea turtle nesting grounds, our coral reef and our mangroves.  Yes, we don't like mosquitoes either.  But we'll take them over the devastation of our island, our way of life, our children’s future and our economy.   If celebrities like you buy into the Baker’s Bay Club, our children will have no hope. The Sierra Club, the Mangrove Action Network, the Global Coral Reef Alliance, all Caribbean turtle conservation organizations, researchers from NOAA and marine institutions around the world, as well as Jean-Michel Cousteau, the world's most revered marine conservation figure, all support our efforts to save Guana Cay reef.  You can learn more at saveguanacayreef.com

Please do not consider your time at Baker's Bay representative of the Bahamian experience, and particularly, of the Great Guana Cay experience. 

Your fans in Great Guana Cay,

Save Guana Cay Reef Association LTD
General delivery
Great Guana Cay
Abaco, Bahamas

Bahamas Anchor Projects begin to Fail as Upscale Golf Developments across Western Hemisphere Flounder
Prime Minister courts Baker's Bay Club as other anchors go under | August 5, 2008

The previous Prime MInister of the Bahamas, Perry Christie, based his tenure on the idea of anchor developments - flood the small, quiet out-islands with big foreign money - casinos, golf courses, hideaways for the ultra-rich. Local communities balked and fought, but the administration fought on for what it believed to be the country's economic saviour. Last year, Hubert Ingraham, who had served as Prime Minister before Christie, beat him on a campaign that questioned the anchor development program.

But now, Ingraham is seeing the anchor developments faltering. The news is everywhere, and follows a trend that we are seeing throughout the west, as recession strikes. One example is Lake Las Vegas, a golf megadevelopment now in bankruptcy court. But here in the Bahamas, the anchor projects are crashing left and right. For example, the Nassau Guardian reports of the Rum Cay Project, "The development company behind a Rum Cay project the fate of which even the government has begun to question is conceding delays while maintaining its commitment to press on. "

BahamasB2B reports of the Ginn Project: "In a move that could have serious consequences for Grand Bahama, developers behind the Ginn Sur Mer project have announced that they will have to make "difficult decisions relating to the "management and oversight" of their property in West End after again missing a deadline set by their money lenders...Development companies affiliated with Bobby Ginn had been given 30 days ... to work out a solution to their financial woes after defaulting on a loan repayment..."

Meanwhile, here in the Abacos, the Joe Cay Development learns from Baker's Bay mistakes.

Mangrove Loss and Climate Change—A Global Perspective
Article from World Rainforest Report mentions Great Guana Cay | August 5, 2008

Full article here:

Guana Cay mangroves under threat

Mangroves are the rainforests by the sea. Large stretches of the sub-tropical and tropical coastlines of Asia, Africa, Oceania, the Americas and the Caribbean are fringed by mangroves, once estimated to cover an area of over 32 million hectares. Now, less than 15 million hectares remain —less than half the original area.
 
The importance of the protective mangrove buffer zone cannot be overstated. In regions where these coastal fringe forests have been cleared, tremendous problems of erosion and siltation have arisen, and terrible losses to human life and property have occurred due to destructive hurricanes, storm surges and tsunamis.
 
Today there is a growing urgency to recognize the importance of conserving and restoring protective mangrove greenbelts to lessen the dangers from future catastrophes, because as sea levels rise so will the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and storm surges. Mangroves can buffer against the fury of such destructive storms, protecting those settlements located behind a healthy mangrove fringe.
 
Mangrove Action Project (MAP) is working with other organizations in the global South towards restoring degraded and cleared mangrove areas as a high priority.  MAP is especially interested in restoring some of the 250,000 ha of abandoned shrimp farms located in former coastal wetland areas, especially in Asia and Latin America. But, even more importantly, MAP is working to help conserve and protect existing mangrove wetlands around the world.
 
Conserving existing mangroves and restoring the vast areas of degraded and cleared mangrove wetlands will serve as a partial solution to global warming. Our planet perhaps faces one of the greatest threats to life as we know it. This crisis is being fueled by human induced climate change. Because nearly half of humankind today lives in cities and settlements located along the now vulnerable coasts, global warming and consequent sea level rise cannot be ignored. Already evacuations of low-lying islands have begun in South Asia and the South Pacific Islands. It is expected mass evacuations of millions of coastal residents will occur within the next 50 years as sea level continues to rise as a result of the greenhouse effect caused by excessive carbon gas emissions.
 
Nevertheless, mangrove wetlands are often the first line of defense, helping to secure the coasts against erosion and storms. Mangroves are also one of nature’s best ways for combating global warming because of their high capacity for sequestering carbon. This is a characteristic of mangrove wetlands that now demands our most immediate and undivided attention. One of the greatest contributions that mangroves may have to offer is their great propensity to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and store this in their wetland substrate. According to the Feb. 2007 issue of National Geographic, “Mangroves are carbon factories… Measurements suggest that mangroves may have the highest net productivity of carbon of any natural ecosystem (about a hundred pounds per acre per day)…”
 
Mangroves have been seriously undervalued by those government agencies responsible for their protection and management, as is so clearly evidenced in the Caribbean, especially in the Bahamas where such travesties in shortsighted developments are now occurring at Guana Cay and Bimini Islands.
 
This combined lack of conservation ethic, shortsighted greed and weak law enforcement have allowed massive losses of these coastal wetlands, with one huge, hidden cost arising from the oxidation and release of stored mangrove carbon.
 
From a study performed by Dr. Ong of Universiti Sams in Malaysia, it was found that the layers of soil and peat composing the mangrove substrate have a high carbon content of 10% or more.. Each hectare of mangrove sediment might contain nearly 700 metric tons of carbon per meter depth. In building large numbers of shrimp farms or tourist complexes, the resultant clearing of mangroves and subsequent excavation of the mangrove substrate could result in the potential oxidation of 1,400 tons of carbon per hectare per year.

Again, according to Dr. Ong, “Assuming that only half of this will become oxidized over a period of 10 years, we are looking at the return of 70 tons of carbon per hectare per year for ten years to the atmosphere. This is some 50 times the sequestration rate. This means that by converting a mere 2 percent of mangroves, all of the advantages of mangroves as a sink of atmospheric carbon will be lost…”
 
According to the latest study by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the current rate of mangrove loss is around 1% per annum—or around 150,000 ha of new mangrove area loss per year. This translates to around 225,000 tons of carbon sequestration potential lost each year, with an additional release of approximately 11 million tons of carbon from disturbed mangrove soils each year.
 
Obviously, this is an immense problem requiring our concerted action. Not only are we losing the important potential for carbon sequestration offered by the mangroves, but we are also seeing the release of major quantities of polluting gases from the disturbed mangrove substrate itself. This continued clearing of mangroves for whatever reasons must now be perceived in an entirely new light…a light that illuminates far beyond the dark crevices of development for convenience and profit to a future for life and a sustainable living on this now endangered planet…this home we call our Earth.
 
By Alfredo Quarto, Executive Director, Mangrove Action Project

Megastar Cher Rescued from 'Moonscape' Baker's Bay Club
Miami Dolphins Seaplane makes daring maneuvers for Pop Queen | July 27, 2008

Dozens of eyewitnesses helped us piece together a sensational rescue from last week. Pop superstar Cher was invited to tour the Baker's Bay Golf & Ocean Club. The Baker's Bay staff rented a house for her to stay in the Orchid Bay development area, on the south end of the island.

But, according to local eyewitnesses, Cher complained about the Baker's Bay Club, citing that the place looked like a moonscape, without any trees. She was outraged by the mosquitoes, flies and other critters at Baker's Bay. Enraged at the environmentally irresponsible development, Cher demanded a hundred-and-fifty foot yacht rescue her from Great Guana Cay immediately. Getting such a yacht proved impossible for the Baker's Bay staff, who showed visible stress at Cher's demands.

Cher was livid. At Docksiders, a beautiful upscale restaurant overlooking the harbour, she refused food or drink. Apparently, her horrible experience at Baker's Bay had sent her into an understandable shock. As the Baker's Bay staff were unable to meet her request for a hundred-and-fifty foot yacht, the sea plane owned by the Miami dolphins owner made a dramatic entrance at Fisher's Bay. Cher was quickly rescued from Baker's Bay. The sea plane launched from the bay, and Cher was gone. She was taken to Harbour Island. Far to the south of the Abacos, Harbour Island is an established wealthy hideaway for stars. No mosquitoes there. And no environmentally irresponsible moonscape either.

The Cher incident is another in a growing list of celebrity mishaps and embarrassments at Baker's Bay.