Part III: Great Guana Cay three
years after the fight began

La Sagra's flycatcher on Great Guana Cay.

In 2006, inspired by the development controversy at Baker’s Bay, Jane and I visited a site in Nicaragua that the World Bank was pitching as a golf development.  But the owners despised golf, and in deference to a footprint that would have decimated a rich coastal dry forest habitat, they built Nicaragua’s most exclusive resort as an eco-resort; a place that adopted ingenuity and restraint to make almost no impression on the land while employing the craft of the local community.

We had been walking on the property with a guide at night.  When we approached the beach, the guide wouldn’t allow us on the beach.  Only one man was allowed on the beach at night; a patrol who was hired to watch, protect and secure the beach for nesting sea turtles.  He carried a dim red flashlight that he only turned on when absolutely necessary.

Sustainable development in sensitive areas must abide by these strictest codes. 

So why then, even though the international scientific consensus believes Baker’s Bay will destroy the nearshore marine environment, is Baker’s Bay Club considered by the Bahamian government to be the most environmentally sensitive development ever to grace the shores of the Bahamas?

Wait, did I write that correctly?  Baker’s Bay is touted as the Bahamas’ most sustainable development ever built?

Yes.  Correct.  But hold on to the guardrail for a moment.

As Jenkins hits the throttle, I see a giant loggerhead turtle emerge from the clear water of Baker’s Bay.  In this bright light, the animal appears brilliant.  What a creature!  In a matter of minutes, someone sites a spotted eagle-ray, gliding through the water.  Already this morning, I spotted a pair of bottlenose dolphins and a seven foot nurse shark.

As we boat beyond the marina area, we come to the Baker’s Bay side beach lots.

“They pack ‘em like sardines,� Jenkins says, as we stare at the tightly packed lot signs.  It is unfathomable that anyone would pay the millions of dollars it costs to purchase these lots.  The lots are incredibly small by Abaco standards, and the homes will be built by a single foreign construction company in a matching, Orange County-Arizona country club style superficially adjusted to the yellows, pinks and blues of Bahamian architecture. 

On top of that, getting to Great Guana Cay is difficult, especially for the type of high-stress golfers who frequent Discovery Land Company developments.  One must fly to Miami or Fort Lauderdale, then take a small flight to Marsh Harbour.  A taxi from Marsh Harbour Airport will bring them to a ferry.  The oft-packed ferry departs only so many times a day, and takes about forty minutes, and that’s all weather-permitting.  Travel like that is the antithesis to the idea of the gated-development lifestyle.  Folks who want gated communities don’t want Cessnas, taxis, customs and ferries packed with sweaty Bahamians.  And by agreeing to buy property at Baker’s Bay Club, buyers will be committing to living on an island where their very presence is detested.

But the strangest thing about buying into Baker’s Bay is the fact that there is a very real possibility that the development will lose in court, and, ultimately, fail.  Discovery Land Company has stated that they have already sold 200 lots.  But the developer has created an investment culture around its properties; i'ts believed that many of the Baker’s Bay lots have been sold by property flippers, who have made hefty profits on Discovery in the past.

Forbes Magazine wrote about the phenomena in June 2005,

"Discovery likes to sell the product before they build it," says Schumacher. "Mike (Meldman, CEO of Discovery Land Company) offers an incentive and makes it economically attractive for people who follow him around by letting them buy lots early on." Discovery doesn't charge property owners membership dues until a golf course is finished...Discovery's customers...often buy multiple lots intending to keep one for themselves while flipping the rest...It helps that these speculators are willing to jump in before much of a development is even built...What can go wrong? Well, if you buy early, you run the risk that a developer might not provide all the amenities promised or that the development goes bust before it's done. Or maybe it's well financed but can't get the building permits it needs..."

Trying to recreate Discovery Land Company luxury in the Abacos seems absurd.  The weather is unsuitable to golf much of the year, and small spaces make people stir-crazy.  Selling the lots is easy with all of Meldman’s dedicated flippers.  But what happens when the flippers try to start flipping Baker's Bay?

We throttle along the home lots.  “There’s the Disney ruins,� I say, referring to the thatched building just off the shore.  The building was the center of the Baker’s Bay property when Disney and Premiere Cruiselines used this land as a cruise ship stopover. 

The building was used to house a barbeque and open air picnic seats for guests on Disney’s Big Red Boat.  After Disney decided to quit using Baker’s Bay as a cruise destination, the development was left to shambles.  Oil tanks sat in disrepair, the buildings were left to collapse. 

Baker’s Bay Club used this environmental infraction to its advantage.  They pitched themselves as an ecosensitive development that was going to clean up ‘Disney’s mess.’ 
Today, it is widely believed that Discovery Land Company is indeed a superior alternative to what came before.  But, if we are to put aside the huge dredging operation that created the deepwater channel for cruiselines to get to Baker’s Bay, the difference between the two is incomparable. 

The Disney spot was a dock, a few buildings, a wooden amphitheatre and a golf cart trail to the Atlantic beach.  Baker’s Bay Golf & Ocean Club, on the other hand, terraforms 600 acres, a property the size of the Bahamas' most famous island, into one massive urban development – it is the scope, or footprint – the total size of the project that makes it so dangerous.  The difference is scale.

The Disney stopover was a product of its times – today, we can view it with 20/20 hindsight with an environmental awareness we lacked then.  But the Disney site itself was relatively harmless.  Its greatest infraction was its use of exotic plant species.  Those exotics never really did much of a number on the Baker’s Bay forests.  Those forests were tangly, dense, impenetrable; they held up against this wave of exotics. 

Jenkins says, “They’re using that building as the nursery now.�

The nursery is important – it is at the heart of the Baker’s Bay marketing game.

The world is going green.  We all know that.  Sometimes, we feel we are being crammed sustainability down our throat.  Sometimes, I want to take that efficient lightbulb and jam it back down the throat of the media barrage.   Green has become big business, and companies are finding they can profit handily off the greening of consumers.

I have enjoyed seeing genuine efforts by big business to lessen their carbon footprint, to green their supply-chains, to self-regulate their industries in the absence of appropriate regulation from government.  It is all a strange twist to the evolution and refinement of capitalism.  We never saw this coming.

But, we also know that in this buzzing world of green, companies have the option to put more money into marketing and product development that makes their product feel green.  Or worse, misleads their clients into believing they are protecting the environment by purchasing a product, even though the only changes to the product are the amount of green and brown ink in the packaging.

The greatest defense against greenwashing is intelligent, educated consumers.  Usually, if you aren’t educated on sustainability issues, maybe you just buy an overpriced toilet cleaner with a picture of  a leaf.  But greenwashing can be taken all the way, to produce a deception so grand and so vile, you can use it to collapse an entire economy.

Bahamians are, overall, uneducated on the marine issues that matter to them most, and this is a great asset for a golf developer.

Baker’s Bay has converted the Disney building into a giant, impressive nursery.  Dignitaries from Bahamian government and Caribbean nations are invited to this nursery all the time.  A staff of clean-cut, young Bahamians lead them through rows of native plants – Great Guana Cay’s dense Baker’s Bay interior was the home of several orchid species, and bromeliads; those wicked starry airplants whose bracts blossom in brilliant orange, red and purple displays.

Nothing like this greenhouse nursery has ever existed in the Bahamas.

Isn’t it amazing how many resources Baker’s Bay is putting into saving the environment?

Sometimes, in conversation on mainland Abaco, you’ll hear some Americans talking about how they just came back from a Friends of the Environment meeting.  Friends of the Environment is Abaco’s environmental group, and Baker’s Bay Club gives them sizeable donations each year.

The Americans will say, “I really enjoyed that Friends of the Environment meeting last night.  Baker’s Bay was there.  They are amazing, and sooo nice.  Did you know they have a nursery dedicated to saving orchids and bromeliads and all sorts of rare plants?

The press in Abaco help propel the Baker's Bay environmental story. Glowing reviews of their environmental practices often appear in the Abaconian, for example.

This Baker's Bay Club press release was printed as fact in the Abaconian last year. Baker's Bay is opposed by the world's most respected sea turtle experts, because the unwieldy size of their development adjacent to sea turtle nesting grounds poses a grave danger to at least 3 endangered species. But, Baker's Bay, heavy advertisers in the Abaconian and get marketing material printed as fact, while the Abaconian has never printed any of the concerns about Baker's Bay and sea turtles, including criticism from well-known marine personalities. The above article had no byline and was likely fabricated.