Bahamas News

As it awaits a decision from the Supreme Court regarding a legal challenge it raised to the multimillion-dollar Bakers Bay development at Guana Cay, the Save Guana Cay Reef Association (SGCR) is continuing to mount an out-of-court battle against the controversial project.

The Association said it was shocked to learn that the Discovery Land Company will be allowed to soon resume work, and again accused the developers of damaging the environment, a claim the Court of Appeal only recently dismissed for lack of evidence.

The high court last week said that the developers would be allowed to resume their work as of this Wednesday if the Supreme Court does not rule on the case it heard more than three months ago.

“Save Guana Cay Reef will continue to fight for our island, our reef and our country,” the association says in a new statement.

“Our association, which consists of hundreds of shareholders on Great Guana Cay, indeed has legitimate environmental concerns, all of which have never been appropriately addressed by the developer. While hundreds of independent coral reef and marine biology scientists actively support or assist the SGCR position, there are no independent scientists who back theirs.”

The Association pointed to a resent statement from the Sierra Club, an international environmental organisation which works on issues ranging from climate change and energy to toxic chemical contamination and loss of biological diversity.

“The massive scale of the proposed development at Guana Cay, with its attendant risks of permanent damage to adjacent reefs, raises very legitimate environmental concerns,” the statement said.

“…The environmental concerns allegedly ‘feigned’ by those opposing the project are very real indeed. They are in fact well-documented within the EIA prepared by the developer.”

But Discovery Land Company has maintained all along that its development would have no serious adverse impact on the environment.

“The Baker’s Bay Golf and Ocean Club shares the concerns of all Bahamians for the environment and protection of the corals and reefs that are key components of the natural resources of The Bahamas,” the company said recently.

“To say and or portray otherwise in the manner frequently done by SGCR is a misrepresentation of the truth and a travesty.”

The developers have said that Baker’s Bay will be the most environmentally sensitive development in the world.

“Clearly, it would not be in the project’s best interest to harm the environment and we are taking very careful, proven, and appropriate steps to safeguard the environment in and around Baker’s Bay,” the developers said. “We are more than prepared to share our environmental safeguard plans with all interested parties.”

Back in November, the company had entered into a court-approved undertaking not to continue its project until the Supreme Court case was decided, but last week the Court of Appeal agreed to free the developers from that undertaking.

In response to that decision, company spokesman, Dr. Livingston Marshall said this was a significant decision.

“Keep in mind that we gave that undertaking voluntarily as a measure of good faith because we’ve always felt that project is consistent with some of the highest environmental standards with regard to development,” Dr. Marshall said.

“We gave the undertaking knowing full well that we have confidence in the judicial system and that all of the merits of the case were brought to the public and to the courts our side would prevail.”

Dr. Marshall said the release of the undertaking is a first step in providing significant job opportunities for Bahamians, but the company will have to wait the Supreme Court decision, which is expected to come any day now.