Cuban emeralds glitter at the traditional settlement of Great Guana Cay.

Privy Council, At Last | March 20, 2008

Save Guana Cay Reef has applied to leave for Privy Council. You can read here. A more detailed explanation of privy council and current events will be appearing soon.

Bimini: An Island Ignored

Bimini, An Island Ignored | March 24, 2008
Rise Up Sweet Island Special: Three Years Later Overview
 
People from Bimini, and around the world, have been calling for the preservation of this beautiful island for years.  Back in 2000, we were told that our precious home was designated as the highest-priority site in the Bahamas for a Marine Protected Area, yet here we are in 2008 with no MPA.  Bimini's MPA is widely supported, locally and internationally, and its implementation is a key factor to the economic and ecological future of the island, long-hailed as the Big Game Fishing Capital of the World.  Just a few days ago, a news report suggested that the government is holding off on designating Bimini's MPA because of a perceived apathy from Bimini, rather than recognizing that for us here, this issue should have already been settled years ago.  I am never one to take a defeatist's attitude but I can see why there appears to be a sense of apathy amongst the people of Bimini.  
 
There have been inquiries, investigations, committees, surveys, studies and promises for years in regards to the current development on North Bimini and their wanton destruction and impact on the environment and ecology. We have talked to administrators, MP's, lawyers, church leaders, heads of state, scientists, and environmental groups. We have had meetings, forums, educational fairs, flyers, and petitions voicing our desire to have the project stopped and preservation of the wetlands implemented. And through all of this do you know what the general belief of Biminites is...?
 
We feel that it doesn't matter what we do because the government leaders do not have our best interest at heart, only profit - personal or otherwise. Our desire to preserve the natural heritage of Bimini for the future of Bimini, the very thing that brings people like the Bimini Bay developers to our islands, is for sale to the highest bidder. In the end our fate is not in our own hands but in the hands of a small few who know nothing of daily life in Bimini and the tragic effects that this development, even in just its beginning stage, has had on the economy and ecology of the island.
 
Most people feel this way and have adopted the attitude toward our leadership of "they're going to do what they want to do no matter what we say, so why waste your breath". I know it's unfortunate but it's a product of being let down by the same people for so long. So when the government says that the people of Bimini have not shown that they want a Marine Reserve or National Park, it's not true, we do. The people of Bimini have been ignored for too long, and for many their hopes for a better tomorrow have waned. I say shame on the leaders of our nation if they plan to use the plight of a weary community as their excuse to do the wrong thing. 

Establishing Bimini's MPA and preserving whats left of Bimini will ensure that Biminites, tourists, and even foreign developers can enjoy this island jewel for future generations.
 
Marty Weech
Biminite, Born and Raised

Three Years Later, Worst Case Scenario | February 17, 2008
Rise Up Sweet Island Special: Three Years Later Overview

Mangroves gutted. This photo shows almost the entire island. To the left (north) is the Atlantic. The dak splotches in the water there are corals. The dark splotches to the lower half of the photo are seagrass beds and small coral formations, mostly now dead. Center right is the marina under construction, attached to the failed cruiseshipway from the Disney/Premiere destination, which even the current developer admits harmed the coral reef. Photo courtesy SGCR.

Three years ago, hundreds of Bahamian residents and second home-owners on Great Guana Cay banded together to form the Save Guana Cay Reef Association when a California golf developer was given authority to build a megadevelopment on their tiny island without their input or consent. The local community had many fears, and their fears were backed by science and precedent.

Meanwhile, the developer employed tactics to reassure the Bahamian community that the residents were quite wrong about their concerns. Looking at Great Guana Cay today, and the claims made by the locals of Great Guana Cay and the developer, a worst case scenario has been realized. The local's fears about the Baker's Bay Club are proving true. This month, we'll look at every issue in daily updates. Although the developer's promises, and the impact of their development are bad, there is certainly hope for Great Guana Cay, as court decisions loom and scientists begin to discuss ways to restore the habitats of the northern end of the island.

Aerial shows marina butting up to the coral reef shore of Great Guana Cay. Photo courtesy SGCR.

Developers should have a right to develop their land. But community input is essential whenever a development will profoundly affect that community, and this is especially so when the temporary land interests of developers clash with the long-term land interests of a community. Additionally, development in critical ecosystems must abide not just to a particular country's strictest environmental standards, but to the standards that preserve these critical environments - it is not the regulation that matters, but the final result. This is especially true in the Bahamas, whose environmental standards are still a work in progress, and do not yet yet adequately regulate development that affects reefs and mangroves.

The nearshore waters of Great Guana Cay are a critical ecosystem - the island's coral reef is one of the finest staghorn/elkhorn communities in the West Indies. It is of significance not only to the people who rely on it for their employment and tourism, but to the world as well. These Caribbean-Atlantic reef systems are under severe stress. We are losing them, and so protecting this spectacular reef is important for the world's biodiversity. Preserving the reef at Great Guana Cay preserves a habitat that exists nowhere else and which provides shelter to endangered species, such as three species of sea turtle.

Grouper, photographed by Erik Gauger, 1989.

The Baker's Bay Club proposal does not address the loss of the coral reef. From the beginning, the developer has refused to acknowledge this.

To save it, the locals must successfully sue the developer and the government, and hope to have the marina and golf course plans removed from the development. A win for Great Guana Cay will impact more than just the lives of the residents, who feel terrorized by the Baker's Bay Club's animosity towards their way of life, towards their resistance, towards their reef.

The following entries will look at each issue caused by the Baker's Bay Club and what is actually happening on the island today.

Mangroves and Coral Reefs | February 17, 2008
Rise Up Sweet Island Special: Three Years Later vol. 1

Construction site at Baker's Bay Club. Photo courtesy SGCR.

Throughout the Caribbean in the last 20 years, poorly managed coastal land has been threatening coral reefs. In particular, large developments and government projects have cleared acres of coastal mangroves, in order to bring hotels, airports and golf courses closer to the water.

The effect has been stunning.

Mangroves are rich in biodiversity. In the Abacos, which are the first stop for birds along the Atlantic flyway, rare birds nest in these mangroves. More importantly for the local habitat, mangroves are nurseries for lobsters as well as the fish who eventually inhabit the coral reef. Even more importantly, the mangroves filter the rainwater run-off.

This is the key for Great Guana Cay, because the mangrove forests of Great Guana Cay have now been removed by the Baker's Bay Club. Mangrove forests are essential at absorbing the nutrients produced by the land. Coral reefs require a nutrient-poor ecosystem in order to survive. By removing the mangroves from Great Guana Cay, Baker's Bay Club has engaged in a mistake seen again and again throughout the Caribbean.

Swimming up the mangrove river, "Joes Creek" located on the crown land of the Baker's Bay development. Photographed by Jane McClanahan.

Nutrient-rich water, created by removal of mangroves (or by altering the natural landscape of terrestrial flora in general near coral reefs) increases the nutrients entering the porous skin of the coral polyps. The coral polyps cannot contain an explosion of thick algae, which quickly suffocate the corals, and kill the reef. These algal blooms disrupt the balance of the reef, crashing not only the corals themselves, but the fishes and invertebrates upon which the ecosystem depends.

It was reported by locals who met with Discovery Land Company's CEO at an informal meeting at Nipper's bar, that he asked them why they were so interested in saving the mangroves. Even at this meeting held in 2006, a CEO of a company whose project is at risk for the threat it poses to mangroves and coral reefs, did not even understand why.

This attitude has been consistent throughout the Caribbean, resulting in further degradations of coral reefs throughout the region.

In her excellent critique of modern tourism trends in the Caribbean, Last Resorts, Polly Patullo offers several examples of the dangers posed by removing mangroves. I quote an extensive passage while firmly recommending this book to everyone interested in the region.

"McKinnon's Saltpond in Antigua was no exception, even if it had earlier been subjected to damage from oil spills from a now abandoned refinery. Yet, like thousands of other stretches of mangrove throughout the Caribbean, the attractions of unused land close to stretches of fine sandy beach, were to great a temptation for developers to ignore. In the mid 1980's, the St. John's Development Corporation, a statutory government body, and an Italian investment company, planned to build condominiums and a marina on land that included the salt pond. Before this could happen, an environmental impact assessment was made, which recorded, among other things, that the condition of the reef at that point was, "fair" and that the salt pond prevented the outflow of polluted fresh water into the two bays. It recommended various remedies to limit the environmental damage that would be incurred by the Marina Bay Condominiums project.

Corals near the development site are already showing stress. This photo shows coral bleaching, a climate change related stress. Photographed by Jane McClanahan.

The report was shelves and the project went ahead. Part of the pond was reclaimed by dredge and fill methods and the condominiums were built. Within a few years, the impact of these changes had been felt: divers confirmed that there was dead coral on the reef, together with fewer fish, turbid water, and patches of dead sea grass around the channel. The salt pond, which had become a swamp, also suffered. Its mangroves began to die, because untreated sewage from hotels, was periodically emptied into the swamp. For several consecutive summers following the draining of the pond, thousands of fish died from lack of oxygen, their bodies rising to the surface of the rotting swamp. To solve this problem, the government pumped seawater into the swamp. The 'dilated' sewage spilled out of the swamp and ran down the beaches before escaping into the sea to join the frolicking tourists. There were also reports of raw hotel sewage being pumped directly into the sea that laps at its frontage, and so, as one observer noted, 'dispersing offal among the tourists, who are so happy to be in the sun, they do not notice what else they are in.'

The majority of Great Guana Cay's mangroves were removed by the Baker's Bay Club. This is a travesty. But there is hope. Locals and supporters of the opposition to the development have expressed interest in restoring this habitat after the developer leaves. Successful mangrove reintroduction projects have been successful in the past. And a motivated local population makes the hope for restoring the mangrove habitat that much closer to a reality.

Still No Transparency, No Accountability | February 18, 2008
Rise Up Sweet Island Special: Three Years Later vol. 2

Three years later, Baker's Bay Club offers little of the transparency recommended in their own Environmental Impact Assessment. Baker's Bay Club gives the appearance of being open and transparent about their plans, but if you examine their claims and the EIA itself, you will find that over the past three years, most of the critical information is still missing.

- After receiving criticism about the lack of marine information in the EIA, the developer was expected to produce a new, revised EIA. That EIA was apparently never actually created. The official EIA is still the original one.

- The EIA makes several suggestions for involving the community and environmental organizations in reporting. Those suggestions were never made, even the most important ones, as charged by the EIA. Although Livingston Marshall, VP of Environment and Community Affairs at Baker's Bay, stated such efforts would be put in place, they never were.

- The environmental monitoring team allegedly produces a report card for the development on a monthly basis, but that report card has never been made available to the public.

- Primary questions about the developers plans for hurricane protection, wastewater treatment, removing nitrogen from the water - have never been answered. It is widely understood that the developer has not yet figured these parts out.

Regular Rise Up Sweet Island Blog

Fabien Cousteau backs Efforts at Bimini Bay | February 26, 2008

Very good news for Bimini. It looks like the efforts to restrict the scope of the Hilton project are becoming very real. The new attention bring brought to Bimini by Fabien Cousteau, Jean-Michel Cousteau's son, seem to be helping the efforts greatly.

Following is a piece from the Bahama Pundit. In it, Neil Sealey is quoted as saying, "The people of Bimini are now trapped behind a wall while most of their island has been taken over by a developer who wants to knock golf balls around. The North Sound and the entire mangrove area to the east are clearly deserving of some sort of protected status - it's an oasis in a vast expanse of water."

Very nice of Mr. Sealey to say. However, Sealey is the husband of the environmental monitoring team leader of the Baker's Bay Club, Kathleen Sullivan-Sealey. He was an early supporter of the environmental qualities of Baker's Bay. Ironic, how cronyism can lead us to say one thing in one place, and the opposite somewhere else. Here is a Neil Sealey letter defending Baker's Bay Club, with comments by me.

Fabien Cousteau was attracted to Bimini by Cindy Slater, a Floridian who has been visiting the island since childhood. She is devastated by what is happening there, and set up the Save Bimini Association to fight back: "You can tell the people who live at Bimini Bay," she says, "as opposed to those who come to enjoy the real Bimini - they wear high heels instead of flip flops. The resort should stop where it is now - there is no need for a golf course to fill in the mangroves."

Bahamian environmental expert Neil Sealey agrees. "The people of Bimini are now trapped behind a wall while most of their island has been taken over by a developer who wants to knock golf balls around. The North Sound and the entire mangrove area to the east are clearly deserving of some sort of protected status - it's an oasis in a vast expanse of water."

Cousteau and Slater were in Nassau last week to meet with a variety of politicos, enviromentalists and media folks. Slater said no one they spoke to could understand why the Bimini Bay development is allowed to continue in its present format: "Even Capo could turn this around and have a resort that draws on a marine park. Bimini's resources for ecotourism are huge."

According to Bahamas National Trust deputy president Pericles Maillis, Bimini Bay is one of a handful of development "anomalies" in the Bahamas, and the government has had the grace to admit it was a mistake. He noted that the project was on the upcoming BNT council meeting's agenda, and there are expectations that some sort of "green line" will be drawn to stop further development.

"I can tell you that there is a joint initiative right now between the BNT and the government to look at the agreements and the extent of compliance and to see how we can ameliorate the situation. But," he warned, "in a democracy, things that are done are not often undone."

Some say the future of Bimini is in the hands of those who live there. Environmentalists can point out what's wrong, but it's the local folk who must force the politicos to act. As one Biminite said in Cousteau's video, Paradise in Peril, "Bimini is the fishing capital of the Bahamas. If you gonna come to Bimini to play golf, then you going away from what Bimini is all about."

Duncombe Critical of Inland Marinas, Golf Development | February 25, 2008

From ReEarth. You can read more about Albany at the ReEarth website section on this development.

Environmental activist Sam Duncombe is criticizing the proposed digging of a deep channel through one of the longest stretches of continuous beach in New Providence. The developers of the Albany project are proposing to do the work in order to create a canal.

But Duncombe wants lawmakers to enact legislation that would prevent the cutting of Bahamian beaches and the creation inland marinas. She also wants Bahamians to pressure the government to put its feet down on foreign
investors whose developments cause major erosion and destruction of Bahamian beaches.

During a press conference on Adelaide Beach Tuesday, Duncombe pointed out markers on the southwestern coastline that developers plan to use as guidelines for where the marina slip would begin. She also took
reporters on a ten-minute walk outlining the amount of beach area that Bahamians would have access to once the Albany project is completed.

"This is Clifton all over again," she said. "This is history repeating itself. This is the FNM not learning its lesson. This is another fight for our land. The fact is, Bahamians will not have access to the entire (Adelaide) coastline, and that's what the issue continues to be. We want Bahamians to understand what they are losing
on a daily basis. The beach is the one place where people who don't have a lot of money can enjoy the real wealth of the country."

Duncombe said Bahamians should not tolerate any further restriction in beach access. "We need to demand today that developers can no longer create canals through the beach. There are some things that should never been allowed to happen in this country. It's not benefiting us monetarily, so why are we taking it on?" she asked. She said successive governments have been too short-sighted in seeing the negative impact that breaching beaches would have in the future. "At some point, the government is going to have to acknowledge the mistakes that were made by building inland marinas, how it destroys the beach and how it creates social unrest. We talk about the social problems like crime. We live on a small island that is constantly being hemmed in at the coast so that we as citizens cannot have access. Our coastline is going to be taken away for a few very rich people," she said.

"We need to stop acquiescing to every demand that these developers have. Every time a developer doesn't get his way, he acts like a spoiled brat. He tells the government, 'Well if I can't get this or that, then I can't go through with the project,' well, like my father always said, 'you won't be missed.' I need Bahamians to understand what we are losing. We not only need to wake-up and smell the coffee; we need to drink it as well."

When completed, the $1.4 billion, 570-acre Albany development, will include 300 single-family type homes, cottages and apartments – priced between $2 and $20 million; an Ernie Els-designed championship golf
course and a 100-room condominium complex.

The luxury development is expected to create over 1,000 jobs and attract a new class of residents to the southwestern area of New Providence. The project's Heads of Agreement was signed by the
previous administration in November 2006. Development is taking place in the southwestern area of New Providence, around the secluded Albany House estate.

Since the Progressive Liberal Party signed the Heads of Agreement, the Albany project has been met with a mixture of support and criticism. Some Bahamians have taken issue with the proposed redirection of traffic in the area and limited access to Adelaide Beach; while others welcomed the development and the potential benefits it could bring to the community and local economy. At a town meeting to discuss the development last year, a group of Adelaide Village residents and business owners said the project would have a positive impact on the village. The Bahamas Environment, Science & Technology (BEST) Commission website contains a 124-page Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Albany project, outlining the impact it will have on the environment
and marine life. Duncombe is encouraging Bahamians to become familiar with the document.

"People need to recognize the power we have as individuals and collectively when we speak and what that power means to politicians," she said. "The Clifton Cay development was another example of how incredible and how powerful people can be, because during the first and only meeting the government had about Clifton, over 500 people showed up at Lyford Cay town hall and everybody said 'no', so Clifton never happened," she said.

"We fought that until the then FNM government was thrown out of power. I have to believe they were thrown out of office because they kept saying to us that they were going to just go ahead and do it. The more politicians hear from us, the more we shape our society to how we want it to be, instead of how they think we want it to be."
In addition to the limited access to Adelaide Beach, the environmentalist said she also had a problem with the golf course being planned.

"Golf courses typically create a lot of pollution because of the amount of chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides that are used on the ground to keep it green and lush," she explained. "The reality is, if you have a heavy rain that overflow has to go somewhere. It will go into the ground water and later into the marine environment and that creates problems. Marinas create pollution because you've got 50 boats in one area, they are emptying their bilges and oil is leaking. If you have gas pumps, you're going to have leaks."

She continued, "I encourage people to come out to Adelaide beach and look for these markers and tell me if that's enough beach for you. I'm an Adelaide resident and I refuse to have the largest investment of my life eroded from under my feet simply because rich people don't have enough money yet."

According to Duncombe, once developers build the canal, they will have to place heavy machinery on the beach to dredge the sand in order to renourish the beach.

"What we have to know is that when you cut through a beach it's going to erode over time," she said.
"I've been coming out here for 20 years and I can tell you without a doubt, every summer there are thousands of people coming out here enjoying the beauty and serenity of the beach. Do we want to give that
up for a few hundred wealthy people?"

Protest Signs | February 24, 2008

New signs appearing on Great Guana Cay.

Americans Giving Up Golf | February 21, 2008

This is from the New York Times today:

Former mangroves, future marina and golf course. Photo courtesy SGCR.

"The total number of people who play has declined or remained flat each year since 2000, dropping to about 26 million from 30 million, according to the National Golf Foundation and the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.

More troubling to golf boosters, the number of people who play 25 times a year or more fell to 4.6 million in 2005 from 6.9 million in 2000, a loss of about a third.

The industry now counts its core players as those who golf eight or more times a year. That number, too, has fallen, but more slowly: to 15 million in 2006 from 17.7 million in 2000, according to the National Golf Foundation."

I wonder how this affects golf resort developments that rely on a good U.S. economy and an expanding interest in golf?

Link

Reef Defenders Lose Appeal | February 19, 2008

The next step for case #1, Privy Council. Photo courtesy SGCR.

Here is a note from Save Guana Cay Reef President to the Abaco out-island community after losing the appeal in court. You can read a Nassau Guardian article on the subject here.

As many of you have probably heard by now the judges in the court of appeal in Nassau ruled yesterday in our appeal. Unfortunately the news is not good. The judges ruled that the decision in Freeport will stand. Each one of the three judges gave an hour long ruling that went through all of our grounds of appeal and basically they sided with the trial judge below. They all admitted there were some gray areas but they quoted lots of laws that say that the government has the right through its legislative authority to do all the things it did . All of them hinted that they maybe did not agree with how it was done or it could have been done differently but the government did what they were statutorily required to do by law so there was no grounds for appeal.

Even though there are no environmental laws in the country they did consult with the BEST commission and according to law the judges cannot place another scientists view over the one provided by a government mandated organization.

We still believe both of those statements to be a matter of linguistics and interpretation but that is a matter for the lawyers to work out. Our lawyer is reviewing the judgement and we are considering our next move. Fred came out of court smiling and the first words out of his mouth are we are headed to the Privy so we will see over the next couple of days what our next course of action will be .

Judge Joan sawyer gave a tear jerking speech about the environment and how we all need to protect it but as far as the environment is concerned her hands are pretty much tied. There are no laws to enforce and this is partly what we are complaining about.

I tried to get out in the press and hopefully they can pick this up is that

1. we need environmental laws
2. we need a freedom of information act so these deals do not happen in secret

IF ( and that is a big IF ) we were to stop today we have accomplished a lot . The entire country is a lot more aware of the environment. The new PM has conceded that the way the heads of agreement are written are too liberal and vague. People everywhere are questioning the mega development philosophy and I am sure DLC has been forced to do a lot of things that they never would have dreamed of doing if we were not jumping all over their backs BUT the fact remains and they still have not answered this question....

HOW WILL A GOLF COURSE 25 YARDS AWAY FROM A LIVING CORAL REEF NOT RAISE NITROGEN LEVELS AND CAUSE ALGAE TO SMOTHER THE LIVING CORAL ?????

We will keep you posted on our next move.

Troy Albury
SGCRA

Blog Archives >>