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Mangrove Action Network Speaks
out against Bakers Bay Club

 

This letter might well be considered an epitaph for both Bimini and Guana Cay -those Islands in the Stream both now wracked with mangrove clearing and coastal degradation under two different developers' heavy machinery and heavy-handed politics. The Battle To Save Bimini and Guana Cay Is Not Over! The lessons learned there are hard ones to accept-that outright corruption at the highest government levels and the avarice of single-minded, controlling developers can do so much irreparable damage to once vibrant and important ecosystems.

We can not sit idly by watching as the world loses yet another beautiful place, and a little more mystery has been thrown to the whims of unsustainable development. These are crimes to which we all must plead guilty if we are not now working our hardest to halt such travesties.

Let us look to a future where such shortsighted, mean-spirited decision makers and planners are never again allowed to be in such positions of power, where they can never again ruin the future for the generations to come. Our offspring will ask us, and we must answer them truthfully, How could we let Bimini Island and Guana Cay go? A golf course, or a living futureŠa marina or a mangrove forest wetland-- please tell me, who chose the golf course and marina?

For the Mangroves and the Mangrove Communities,

Alfredo Quarto,
Mangrove Action Project
PO Box 1854
Port Angeles, WA 98362-0279, USA
(360) 452-5866

 

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

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Petition

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

 

Rise Up Sweet Island - the Epic Struggle between the residents of Great Guana Cay and the Baker's Bay Club Golf Resort
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