Bahama Pundit

Hubert Ingraham’s Environmental Legacy

by Simon

If one had to compare Hubert Ingraham to an American president, that country’s 26th chief executive is an apt comparison in significant ways.  Like Teddy Roosevelt, Mr. Ingraham is a colourful and complex personality with a sometimes brash and “take me as I am” persona. 

Often, rather than mincing, dicing or massaging their words, these leaders delivered in sizeable chunks, opinions which endlessly delighted some while exasperating others.  Endowed with photographic memory both men proved endlessly curious and energetic chief executives. 

They both demitted office after two terms, yet eventually ran for high office again. While Mr. Ingraham went on to further electoral success, Mr. Roosevelt did not.  Beyond similar character traits the president and the prime minister crafted extraordinary environmental legacies.

Shelby White and the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve on the Island of Eleuthera

by Larry Smith

GOVERNOR'S HARBOUR, Eleuthera - What is described as "the biggest fundraising drive in history" was launched last year by Wall Street financier Warren Buffet and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. They have roped in scores of the wealthiest families in America for a long-term, charitable project of unprecedented scope.

Buffett and Gates have asked America's super rich to publicly commit to give away at least half of their fortunes within their lifetimes or after their deaths, in their own ways. The pledge stemmed from a series of meetings the two men held with key billionaires in 2009 to consider the effects of the recession on philanthropy.

Those who have stepped up to the plate so far include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Dominos Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, software mogul Larry Ellison, hotelier Barron Hilton, banker David Rockefeller, eBay founder Jeff Skoll, Steve Case of AOL, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, and CNN founder Ted Turner.

Also on the list is Shelby White, who has spent part of every winter over the last 30-plus years in Governor's Harbour. She first came to Eleuthera in the early 1970s to attend a wedding reception with her then boyfriend Leon Levy, co-founder of the Oppenheimer mutual fund. Levy has been described by Forbes magazine as a “Wall Street investment genius and prolific philanthropist”.

"Leon and I married in 1983 and we bought this house on Banks Road a couple years later," she told me last week over a glass of wine, following the gala opening of the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve just down the road. "We loved the simplicity of life here, the people, and the beauty of the landscape."

Diving into Blue Holes and the Sargasso Sea

by Larry Smith

The Bahamas is like a piece of Swiss cheese, scientists say. Our limestone bedrock is riddled with cracks and fissures, and everything is tidally connected.

Ages ago, when sea levels were lower, rainfall eroded the limestone to form extensive underground caverns. These were described on land as early as 1725, by the English naturalist Mark Catesby. The marine caves we call blue holes were first recorded on charts in 1843.

But it is only in the past 50 years or so that we have been able to visit the "enchanted voids" of this mysterious interconnected underworld. In fact, experts describe blue holes as a final frontier - the last unknown places on Earth that humans can physically go to explore.

And explorers are making unprecedented discoveries in Bahamian blue holes, especially on Abaco, where Dan’s Cave has broken all records for an island cave at well over 30,000 feet in length. It is now the longest cave system in The Bahamas.

The Theft of Bahamian Fishery Resources

 by Larry Smith

A recent report by a leading University of Miami marine scientist has confirmed that poaching by commercial fishermen from the Dominican Republic is the greatest single threat to Bahamian seafood resources.

The report on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing was produced for the Bahamas Lobster Fisheries Improvement Project. This initiative is sponsored by local seafood processors in a bid to win endorsement for Bahamian crawfish exports under the European Union's new Catch Certification programme.

Without this endorsement, which is aimed at reducing the over-exploitation of global fishery resources, Bahamian lobsters will be banned from the EU. And this lucrative market takes about 40 per cent of the 12.5 million lobsters we legally export every year (based on a four-year average), a catch valued at more than $87 million.

EU certification requires that lobsters are received only from licensed vessels using legal methods - meaning that only crawfish of legal size and condition are harvested. All fishery products must be properly documented upon landing, with guarantees that exports are not derived from IUU fishing.

Ironically, this is one of the main difficulties in dealing with illegal fishing in Bahamian waters. The DR has a population of 9.6 million (compared to only 353,000 Bahamians), and it receives more than four million air/hotel visitors annually. So that country does not need to export seafood products and is immune to pressures from EU regulations.

Development Planning and the Clifton Legacy

by Larry Smith

Until about 12 years ago most Bahamians had no involvement in development proposals. The government and the developers made all the decisions - behind closed doors - and few people were bothered about it, so long as the money was coming in.

As one longtime conservationist told me, "Back then there was very little awareness about the environment. We couldn't even talk to the government directly about these things. We had to provide our input through others - like the Inter-American Development Bank."

That's what happened in 1989, when the first PLP government decided to move the port to Clifton Point. There was no public consultation, but experts said the environmental costs were too great, so the IADB refused to provide financing. Meanwhile, the 200 acres of private land that had been compulsorily acquired for the port (without actually being paid for) were simply forgotten.

Fast forward to 1997 and those 200 acres were part of a 600-acre tract of private land at Clifton being proposed for a Lyford Cay-type gated community by Canadian investors Jeffrey Waterous, Brian Sweeney and Tad Bachman. Construction was slated to begin the next year.

In Search of Ft Lauderdale's Identity

by Larry Smith

Don't it always seem to go,
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone?
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.

-- Joni Mitchell

The connections between Florida and the Bahamas are more complex than some readers might imagine. In fact, Bahamians were among the first settlers of many South Florida communities - including Coconut Grove, Ft Lauderdale and Key West.

Growing up in the 1960s, I clearly remember what an event it was to visit Miami and eat at the fabulous Burger King on Flagler Street. We stayed at cheap downtown hotels like the Patricia, the Alhambra or the Columbus, and shopped in mercantile palaces like Zayre, Walgreen's or Woolworth's.

I'm not sure what black Bahamians did in Florida during those days of cracker-barrel segregation. It was only in 1960 that sit-ins led by the Congress for Racial Equality made it possible for blacks to shop and eat in Burdines and other department stores. And it was not until the following year that a "white" hotel (the Biscayne Terrace) accepted black guests for the first time.

Miami was always the Bahamian metropolis. But since the 1980s, many white Bahamians at least, have preferred Ft Lauderdale to the overcrowded and increasingly Hispanic conurbation further south. Since I attended the University of Miami in the early 1970s, the area's growth has been explosive, but Miami is far more congested than the rest of South Florida.

Usually a Bahamian trip to Florida is planned for purely commercial reasons, with little time to stand and stare. But after settling our daughter into college last week, we decided to take a closer look at a community we really knew nothing about.

New Planning Law to Control Bahamas Development Takes Effect In January

by Larry Smith

"In The Bahamas, for some, change is either too early or long overdue." -- Hubert Ingraham

Three years ago, outgoing government planning consultant, Malcolm Martini, told a group of Rotarians that the future of New Providence was at risk unless some tough decisions were made.

With few controls over the little land left to service a rapidly growing population (estimated at 240,000-plus today), and physical limits on what can be added to the transportation network, we could look forward to traffic gridlock, congested urban development, vanishing green spaces, and a generally unpleasant quality of life, he said.

Not long after Martini's talk, Shirlea residents found themselves in a futile battle to curb inappropriate commercial development in their sedate little neighbourhood. And any drive through Nassau makes it clear that most residential areas are under the same threat, especially if they are near commercial zones.

A few months ago we celebrated the grand opening of a multi-million-dollar shopping centre near Coral Harbour. On relatively virgin territory, the wealthy developers erased and scarified the pine forest to erect the most banal roadside strip mall imaginable. Not a tree was left standing on this huge, barren and sun-burnt expanse of land.

Two years ago, a supreme court judge hit out at lawyers who sought to regularise illegal real estate transactions by sprinkling "magic lawyer dust", striking a chord with many Bahamians who have fallen victim to questionable real estate deals over the years. But his ruling that developers cannot legally sell lots in unapproved subdivisions was overturned on appeal.

And just recently, Frederick and Maria Wood saw their little home south of Charles Saunders Highway demolished by Bahamian developers who have spent "millions" pursuing their legitimate rights to subdivide the land for housing estates.

Unregulated Fisheries Mean Short-term Gains for the Few and Long-term Loss for the Rest of Us

by Larry Smith

We are all familiar with the basic outline. Fishing accounts for about 3 per cent of our economy, supports several thousand jobs, and earns just under $100 million a year, mostly from exports of lobster and conch.

But there is much more to it than that.

Our marine ecosystems provide vitally important goods and services, supporting traditional fishing communities, as well as a lucrative tourism industry that draws snorkelers, divers and sport fishermen from around the world.

And without a reasonably healthy environment, our quality of life would be greatly impaired - just imagine not being able to catch a few fish or conch for dinner on the out islands.

This means that exploitation of our marine resources must be carefully weighed, using the best information available, so they are not carelessly wasted for short-term gains accruing to a few individuals.

The Past, Present & Future of Bahamian Fisheries

by Larry Smith

The sea is the world's most important food source, but many don't realise that most fish stocks today are over-exploited and in danger of collapsing - as the northern cod fishery did in 1992.

Scientists say overfishing is the biggest single threat to the oceans. In fact, fish don't stand a chance - especially the big ones, which these days almost never get away. Ninety per cent of these top predators have disappeared since the 1950s.

And although industrial fishing (such as longlining, drift netting, purse seine netting, and hydraulic dredging) isn't permitted in Bahamian waters, we too are faced with declining catches and potential ecological disaster.

For example, targeting spawning aggregations caused grouper stocks to plummet and led to a winter closed season. Conch is more and more difficult to find (although half a million pounds were exported last year). And crawfish and scale fish are being heavily depleted by poachers.

Newspaper Pioneer's Legacy on Lee Stocking Island in the Exumas

by Larry Smith

In 1963, the Twilight Zone ran an episode called the Printer's Devil. It told the story of a publisher who, when his linoptype operator quit, had to strike a deal with the devil to save his newspaper.

The point is that linotype operators were critical to a newspaper's survival. So what is a linotype, you ask? Well, it was a big noisy machine that cast lines of type from molten metal for printing.

Sounds medieval, right? But back then it was considered "the acme of perfection", and was a huge leap for the printing industry. For hundreds of years before the linotype was invented in the 1880s, typesetting had been a painstakingly slow process performed by hand, letter by letter.

Today, the entire newspaper production process is digital. But it took a long time for the industry to make the transition from complicated mechanical systems like the linotype to computers. And the changes were bitterly resisted by linotype operators and others, who took years to learn their trade.