Bahama Pundit

New Regional Report on Economic Impacts of Climate Change

by Larry Smith

A new regional report says the economic impacts of climate change could cost Caribbean countries up to 5 per cent of annual Gross Domestic Product over the next four decades, if if no mitigating action is taken.

The report was published last month by the UN's Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean. Funded by Britain, assessments were conducted in different economic sectors across 14 countries, including tourism in the Bahamas.

Here a brief look at the top 10 highlights:

Agriculture is no Economic Panacea for the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

Year after year there are ringing calls for the Bahamas to invest more and do more to develop agriculture.

In 2001, former Central Bank researcher Gabriella Fraser observed that Bahamian agriculture had "hardly evolved" over time, and asked whether enough effort was being made to achieve food security.

Environmental advocate Sam Duncombe argued in a recent online exchange that If we don't invest in agriculture and manufacturing, Bahamians will be condemned to "a life of servitude and dependence."

Dr Marikis Alvarez of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation recently said agriculture could make a "huge contribution" to the Bahamian economy - if only we would inject enough funds into the sector to make it work.

Farmer's association president Keith Campbell says we need to focus on food security and "fully protect" Bahamian farmers from imports.

Lawyer, physician and sometime politician Dr Dexter Johnson insists we can feed ourselves - and produce a surplus for export.

Visioneer John Bostwick says that with better management we could easily achieve food self-sufficiency, and even replace oil imports with our own bio-energy crops.

BAIC chief Edison Key says agriculture could be "the catalyst for economic diversification" by substituting local products for $500 million of imported foodstuffs.

Meanwhile, the government's sector development plan argues that agriculture can be "repositioned as a strong pillar of the Bahamian economy".

And for anyone who remembers the "good old days" when granny and pa harvested fresh fruit and vegetables from their backyard, it is easy to believe that these projections can be fulfilled.

The Economic Impact of Bahamian Protected Areas

by Larry Smith

In January 2009, the container ship Westerhaven ran aground and destroyed about an acre of Belize’s 180-mile barrier reef – the world's second largest. Fifteen months later the Belizean Supreme Court ruled that the ship’s owners had to pay the government $6 million in damages.

Their ruling was based on scientific studies showing that coral reef- and mangrove-associated tourism contribute 15 per cent of Belize’s gross domestic product. And when shoreline protection is considered, these ecosystems provide an extra $347 million in avoided damage every year.

With a similar population to the Bahamas, Belize has protected more than a third of its total land area of just under 9,000 square miles in one way or another, as well as about 13 per cent of its marine area.

In fact, this little, out-of-the-way nation (formerly known as British Honduras) is recognised today as a world leader in conservation and ecotourism, and there has been a lot of research on the value of Belize's protected areas.

One of the scientists involved in this research is 32-year-old Venetia Hargreaves-Allen, who has a doctoral degree from Imperial College, London. She was the principal investigator for the Marine Managed Area Economic Valuation in Belize that was recently produced by Conservation International as part of a global initiative involving hundreds of researchers.

Last year, Hargreaves-Allen produced a similar valuation for the Bahamas, using the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park and the Retreat Gardens in Nassau as case studies. Tough Call was able to review her 100-page report in advance.

Planning to Protect our Bahamian Islands

by Larry Smith

According to Padraic Kelly, the Irish head of a legendary international design firm called Buro Happold, most planning interventions around the world fail due to the lack of an economic vision.

"A shared social and economic vision is as important as an environmental one," he told a group of experts gathered here last week to explore sustainable development in the Bahamas. "There must be clarity as to what pays for sustainable development because an unfunded vision won't work. And the institutional capacity must be in place to implement the vision."

Kelly was speaking at a conference organised by the Ministry of the Environment, the Bahamas National Trust and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham opened the conference, and other speakers included Harvard Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, Erich Mueller of the Perry Institute for Marine Science, Robert Reiss of the Bahamas Institute of Engineers, and several top planners and university professors.

The meeting attracted conservationists, architects, engineers, educators, developers, civil servants and journalists. Their immediate focus was the island chain of the Exumas, where the world's first land and sea park was created in 1958. The government wants to use Exuma as a model for land use planning throughout the country, based on the provisions of the Planning & Subdivisions Act.

Protecting Bahamian Forests

by Larry Smith

Ever since the pine forests of the Bahamas were logged during the first 60 or so years of the last century, their ultimate survival has been in jeopardy due to conflicts with agricultural and commercial development. But a new Forestry Act passed last year could change that.

This landmark legislation created a small Forestry Unit within the Ministry of the Environment that is charged with managing this important natural resource. And for the first time in many decades, a sawmill is operating again on Abaco.

The Forestry Unit has signed an agreement with a local company called Lindar Industries for the harvesting of pine trees on Abaco to make finished lumber, initially for the local market. Lindar is owned by Rob Roman, a Canadian engineer with a background in mining and forestry who is married to a Bahamian.

Three Projects That Could Transform the City of Nassau

by Larry Smith

Three interesting environmental projects are in the works that could have a big impact on our landscapes and lifestyles  - at the eastern, western and southern extremities of Nassau.

They are the proposed redevelopment of the 18-acre Botanical Gardens at Chippingham, the multi-million-dollar reorganisation and restoration of the derelict Montagu foreshore, and the possible creation of a model Bahamian township on 250 acres of undeveloped land at South Beach.

South Beach Township
A public tender to design the township was won late last year by Nassau architects Alexiou & Associates, who linked up with TSW & Associates of Atlanta, a leading New Urbanist design firm. Lionel Johnson, a young Bahamian architect now receiving post-graduate planning experience at TSW, will work with principals Mike Alexiou and Bill Tunnel on this capstone project.

The key goal is to create a new community that breaks the pattern of urban sprawl that has blighted most Bahamian development over recent decades. Draft plans for the South Beach Township propose 3,000 high-density residential units mixed with commercial, civic and recreational areas.

Innovation and Electric Vehicles in the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

Indian-American journalist Fareed Zakaria presented an interesting CNN special this past weekend. The topic was innovation, which is something that the Bahamas desperately needs in both the private and public sectors if we are to move forward at more than a snail's pace.

Zakaria is editor-at-large of Time Magazine and host of CNN's Global Public Square Sunday newsmagazine. He is an incisive commentator and author, who argues that older industries in the US are under tremendous pressure and future growth will have to come from new industries that create new products and processes.

This requires a high level of innovation, but surveys show the US ranks well down the top ten list in spending on things like research, patents and venture projects. In one measure of how much a country has improved its innovation capacity over the past decade, the US was last among 40 nations. That survey took account of factors like research funding, education and corporate-tax policies.

Innovation requires novel business ideas and new technology. For example, Google's Eric Schmidt explained that after developing a better online search programme, his company figured out how to make money from it by creating a new model for advertising sales. But Zakaria makes the interesting point that innovation is not an exclusive property of the private sector.

The WikiLeaks Cables and Pollution at Montagu

by Larry Smith

"In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win." -- newspaper publisher Rupert Murdoch

The whsitleblowing website WikiLeaks first came across Tough Call's radar in 2009, when it published the unexpurgated 266-page Commission of Inquiry report for the Turks & Caicos Islands.

The commission identified "systemic corruption" in the TCI's government, legislature and civil service. Their report was published in July 2009, with some sensitive information removed. The document was then pulled from public view altogether, and a judge issued a media gag order.

But within a few hours the full report appeared on WikiLeaks and, accepting that the information was now in the public domain, the gag order was quickly lifted. As a result, I was able to write an article in this space in September 2009 based on the full uncensored report.

Montagu Remediation, Invasive Scaevola & the Bill to Kill Bin Laden

by Larry Smith

"Little Fort Montagu was finished in 1742...It always calls up pleasant memories, as we often passed near it during the forenoon sails and afternoon rides that did so much to fill our cup of pleasure at Nassau." -- Charles Ives, 1880.

Unfortunately, it is more and more difficult for contemporary visitors and locals to spend a pleasant day at Montagu. The little fort itself may have remained relatively unchanged over the centuries, but its environs are another story.

The beach has all but disappeared due to man-made erosion, and the inappropriately placed seawall has to be rebuilt at great expense every few years. The complex intersection is a major safety hazard, And there is a significant public health threat from garbage, oil and fuel discharges, human and animal waste, sewerage and storm water runoff.

Over the last 20 years this urban waterfront - one of our few recreational areas - has degenerated into an open-air slaughterhouse, flea market and commercial boat ramp  - right smack in the middle of a major road junction next to a public park - without the slightest thought or organization. And these are issues that daily affect an estimated 50,000 people living in the eastern portion of the island.

But that may be about to change - although this is something I have repeated so often in recent years that I am afraid to hold my breath.

Good News And Bad News About Sharks

by Larry Smith

We have some good news and some bad news about sharks.

The bad news is that sharks - like most other big fish in the ocean - are not long for this world if we continue overfishing on an industrial-scale.

The good news is that because driftnet and longline fishing are banned here, our shark populations are relatively stable. In fact, National Geographic has described the Bahamas as a relative "Eden" for sharks compared to the rest of the world.

Sharks have always had an image problem - people tend to regard them as serial killers and fishing competitors. But to Aleksandra Maljković, a doctoral student in marine ecology at Canada's Simon Fraser University, they are a fascinating research subject.