Bahamas News

The Bahamas Swimming Federation continued on the road to the Carifta Games with five athletes attaining the required standards during the Swift Swim Club Classic on Saturday past at the Betty Kenning Kelly Aquatic Complex.

Berchadette Moss, representing the Dolphin Swim Club, went under the Carifta mark of 35.09 seconds in the girls 11-12 50 metres butterfly, winning the race 34.18 seconds.

In the girls 13-14 50 metres butterfly, Bria Deveaux from the Barracuda Swim Club won the event in 33.01 seconds while Shaunte Moss of Swift placed second in 33.44 seconds, both girls dipping below the Carifta mark of 33.63 seconds. On the boys’ side, T’Auren Moss of the Sea Bees, won 400 metres freestyle in 5:12.36 seconds to dip below the Carifta mark of 5:15.49 seconds.

Mancer Roberts and Matthew Lowe, both from the Barracuda Swim Club qualified undere the Carifta mark of 4:52.89 seconds in the 13-14 boys 400 metres freestyle.

Roberts won the event in 4:49.44 seconds while Lowe settled for second place in 4:52.08 seconds.

Source: Bahama Journal

The Government All for One Regatta came to an end on Sunday at Montague Bay with the Red Stripe winning the A-Class while Cobra took the B-Class and Chris Sands won the Optimist event. On, Saturday Irene Goodnight clinched the C-Class title.

On Monday night at the Ministry of Youth and Sports the awards presentation took place, resulting on smiles from the winners and the runner-ups as they collected their earnings. Minister of State for Youth and Sports, Hon. Byran Woodside said he is extremely please with the overall performance of the organizing committee in making the regatta successful.

“The Ministry placed the theme on this ‘All For One Regatta’ season, “Sailing 2008- Strengthened, Fortified and Unified.” Those are some serious words”, said Woodside. “The Bahamian people have strengthened up to go forward in making this regatta season the most successful one ever seen.

“They are fortified in going forward with no looking back and being unified coming together as untied they stand. Divided they fall.

“With the Farmers Cay Exuma Regatta coming up, I am expecting the participation of many skippers and the Bahamian people. Then we move on to Long Island, Cat Island and Acklins,” said Woodside. The Red Stripe owned by Sheldon Gibson and skippered by Lundy Robinson took home the top prize of $2,000.00 in the A-Class with the Bahamar Boat of the Year Good News placing second and garnering $1,700.00. Pieces of Eight placed third for $1,400.00 and the Ana Nicole rounded out in fourth and got $1,100.00. Gibson said this time he sat back and allowed the younger guys to take command of the boat and they were indeed successful.

“This is the first time I really had the chance to see the Red Stripe sailing and she looked beautiful on the water. “Red Stripe will sail at the “Catch Me If You Can Regatta” slated for February and we are again looking for success there. “Red Stripe, having already won Boat of the Year before, was out of action last year so we concentrated on the Silent Partner. This year is different and we will win”, said Gibson.

Lee Armstrong skipper of the 2007 Boat of the Year, the Good News, said the race was successful on Sunday and he is quite confident that there will be success at the end of the year.

“The Red Stripe got a better start on us on Sunday and because of the weather we only sailed one race, giving them the victory but come “Catch Me If You Can Regatta” the results will be a lot different” said Armstrong
In the B- Class the Cobra took the top prize of $1,700.00, with the Eudeva placing second for $1,400.00, the Ant’s Nest third and winning $1,100.00 and Ansbacher Queen fourth for $800.00.

Cobra owner Dwanye Higgins said the races went “okay in their favor on Saturday” as they were able to pull of two first places. On Sunday they ran into some difficulties and finished third, but still took the overall prize.
“I was extremely happy to have my father Jacob Higgins out there to watch the boat sail as he has always been there to give us pointers and good ideas as to what needs to happen.

“We are planning on having a very positive and productive season. We are heading into George Town to bring the championship back and from there we will compete in all of the regattas” said Higgins
He said with this being the first points producer for Boat of the Year, he believes the Cobra can continue on the right track and win although the B-Class is a very competitive.

The Optimist boats headed by Jimmy Lowe also got in some action during the Regatta as a part of their youth development programme.

Chris Sands won with Michael Gibson and Bruce Hall taking second and third respectively.

Source: Bahama Journal

The Central Bank of The Bahamas might have to consider the option of reducing the prime lending rate of 5.50 percent as a means of keeping the Bahamian economy, if the global economic situation continues to deteriorate in the midst of what some have referred to as an ominous economic outlook for 2008.

The recommendation came from Raymond Winder, a leading Bahamian accountant who is also managing partner of Deloitte and Touche.

Following strong growth through the third quarter of 2007, the global economic expansion has begun to moderate in response to continuing financial turbulence, the International Monetary Fund warned yesterday in its new World Economic Outlook update.

Global growth is projected to decelerate from 4.9 percent in 2007 to 4.1 percent in 2008 and downside risks remain.

Mr. Winder proposed a reduction in the prime rate as a critical move to stimulate and encourage economic activity in The Bahamas.

“The Central Bank may have to, depending on how bad things get, reduce the interest rate to ensure that individuals will continue to build houses and businesses and borrow money because then the rates would be a little bit lower,” he said.

Calls to Central Bank Governor Wendy Craigg for a response to the suggestion were not returned up to press time. In her last comments on the economy featured earlier this month at the Bahamas Business Outlook seminar, Ms. Craigg offered a glimmer of hope in her economic outlook.

“I do believe that the prospect for the Bahamian economy for 2008 is, on balance, positive and this is because of the numerous foreign investment projects that are slated to commence during the course of this year,” she said at the time.

However, international ratings agency Standard and Poor’s this week made a starkly different point: while analysts were encouraged by commitments for mega projects in The Bahamas, they projected a slowing of their implementation given the uncertainties of the global environment. Officials stated that this, in turn, would likely pressure the government’s fiscal and external positions.

“The foreign exchange reserve position is, and will remain tight,” the S&P report said.

Mr. Winder stressed that the Central Bank has to be very careful in its monetary policy considering the current realities and projections.

For instance, he said, urging commercial banks to tighten the reins on lending, should not be an option.

“Clearly, for those commercial projects that are still viable those banks should still be lending those enterprises the necessary funds because by doing that those enterprises can then do the necessary developments and whatever projects they are doing that would help to circulate funds in the country and also help to ensure that we have a certain amount of jobs,” he said.

“So we don’t want to be tightening that rein at this particular point in time because by tightening it we will cause the problem to become even worse than it is, but clearly the Central Bank would have to be watching to see what happens.”

The IMF projects that economies in the western hemisphere will grow by 4.3 percent this year and Standard and Poor’s predicts a three percent rate of growth for The Bahamas, down from the four percent that had been forecast.

Another revision downward for global economic growth, growing commotion in the US market and worldwide financial turbulence have countries around the world scrambling to cushion their economies as best they can from the potential fallout.

Economic growth in the United States appears to have slowed notably in the fourth quarter of 2007, with recent indicators showing weakening of manufacturing and housing sector activity, employment, and consumption.

The IMF projects U.S. growth will slow to 1.5 percent this year, down from 2.2 percent last year, reflecting a carryover from 2007.

The risk that continues to generate concern is that the ongoing turmoil in financial markets would further reduce domestic demand in the advanced economies with more significant spillovers into emerging market and developing countries.

In terms of monetary policies the difficult challenge becomes balancing the risks of higher inflation and slower economic activity while there is a possibility of softening oil prices moderating inflation pressures.

The Caribbean Development Bank has already predicted economic fallout for countries in this region from a very likely recession in the U.S. economy this year and urged jurisdictions to prepare for it.

Source: Bahama Journal

If you travel out to the roundabout at Coral Harbor, you would see that acres of pine forest have been cleared away and construction is in the works. Trees are piled around the perimeter and concrete blocks have begun to sprout up in columns where they once stood.

The site is surrounded by protected lands owned by the Water and Sewerage Corporation.

The surrounding forest is part of the National Forest and Southwest Forest Reserve that is protected by the Ministry of Lands and Local Government and is mainly used by the Corporation to handle water runoff.

The clearing is for the first phase of a planned 30,000 square foot facility that will provide amenities to the Adelaide and Coral Harbor area, according to Tony Joudi, head of Fast Track Development, which is building the project.

“It is all privately held land that has been properly conveyed through the proper government channels,” he said.

“It is about eight acres and the surrounding land on the left and the right is protected, but the land we are building on is all private land.”

Mr. Joudi said the facility will provide the basic necessities that are lacking for area residents.

“Nothing is in that area for miles. The population is growing and along with that population growth, people are going to need the basics,” he said.

Mr. Joudi added that the planned facility will include a laundromat, a grocery store, Mail Boxes Etc., a pharmacy, a liquor store and several restaurants.

The project is expected to be completed in the next 18 months, according to Mr. Joudi.

Source: Bahama Journal

GSM cell phone users experienced an interruption in service on Tuesday after a power surge caused the Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s system to crash.

Vice President of Marketing Marlon Johnson explained that the incident occurred shortly before 7am.

“We had a failure on our pre-paid platform that was linked to a power supply that seized a particular segment of our grid and we may have had a power surge on a particular line that tripped a series of breakers,” Mr. Johnson said. “That included the backup and redundancy supply and that set it offline.”

Services were resumed shortly after 2pm. Mr. Johnson said BTC officials faced a number of challenges.

“I think the challenge was that we had to isolate the power line and that took some time,” he said. “What we had to do is not only turn it back on but we had to rewire the system to make sure that it doesn’t collapse again.”

Mr. Johnson said BTC officials are currently working on upgrading the GSM system. He said by the end of this year all of the services pertaining to cell phones should improve.

“We want to expand both the capacity and the coverage to get inside buildings which many people have been challenged with,” he said.

“We want to upgrade it so that its service is more comfortable to what TDMA offers and we have to do so because we are decommissioning the TDMA by the end of the year,” Mr. Johnson added.

“So we recognize fully that we have to bring our GSM to a standard where persons are comfortable migrating and [to ensure] that we don’t have some of these outgoing coverage issues that persons face now.”

Mr. Johnson said the government intends to spend an estimated $40 million to upgrade the GSM system in The Bahamas.

Meantime, Mr. Johnson said the company apologizes for any inconvenience caused as a result of the GSM shutdown on Tuesday.

“We apologize significantly for what has happened and we are in discussions to find out ways in which we can compensate persons for their inconvenience,” he said. “I can’t tell you what that will mean, but we are doing all we can to get the system back up and running.”

Source: Bahama Journal

A storm is brewing in the tax industry in Florida where it appears the passage of a ballot initiative to repeal the exemption tax for shipping goods through the state is a real possibility, according to Chamber of Commerce President Dionisio D’Aguilar.

His comments came at a luncheon Wednesday that the chamber held for members of the chamber.

“Right now when you export goods from Florida to The Bahamas you do not pay a 6% sales tax,” Mr. D’Aguilar said. “The state of Florida experiencing a budgetary crisis, is looking for ways to raise revenue so they are thinking of ways to raise taxes.”

Mr. D’Aguilar said that the politicians in Florida are thinking of reversing that exemption so the goods that are shipped from Florida to the Bahamas will be charged at a 6% sales tax.

“You will have to pay duty and stamp tax on that additional 6% so this can effectively mean that the goods imported from Florida to the Bahamas will go up by 9%,” he said.

Adam Hasner, the guest speaker and deputy majority leader in the Florida House of Representatives said that there is an “affordability crisis” being experienced by Florida.

“Up to the past five years, Florida has experienced great economic growth and prosperity,” Mr. Hasner said. “But as the national real estate market started to decline, we started to experience an economic downturn.”

Mr. Hasner pointed out that rising inflation has become a major problem for Florida as well as unemployment.

“We are also experiencing a more severe real estate slump that is impacting our economy,” he said.

Mr. Hasner told those gathered that as a result of this, politicians are trying to find ways to generate different forms of revenue.

“There is a very important sales tax exemption which makes up about $4 billion of our $13 billion industry in sales tax exemption and that’s an exemption which protects from taxes being levied for export,” Mr. Hasner said.

He said for that reason it is so critical for each person that attended the luncheon to pay attention because the politicians in Florida are looking for more revenue to support services.

“They have to find that money from somewhere and that means they are looking to put every single sales tax exemption or increase on the table,” Mr. Hansen said.

Mr. Hansen also urged that Bahamian businessman monitor closely to two factors in Florida.

“The Bahamas needs to watch the Florida legislature and something called the tax and budget reform commission,” Mr. Hansen said. “Every 20 years- and this just happens to be that year- the tax and budget reform commission convenes and they are members who are not elected.”

He explained that those persons are appointed by the governor of Florida and by the presiding officers of the House of Representatives and the senate.

“They have the constitutional authority to put measures before the voters and bypass the legislature which is a tremendous amount of power,” he said. ” I’m elected by the people of Florida; these persons are not elected but they have the power of direct democracy to put a measure before the voters for their approval.”

Mr. Hasner is himself against the tax coming into effect because of the potential for major loss in business from the Bahamas. He did urge others to join the lobby against it as well.

Source: Bahama Journal

As the new Chairman of CARICOM, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham is expected to shift the focus of the Caribbean Community’s agenda over the next six months from economic integration to tourism.

While world tourism grew by seven percent last year, tourism in the Caribbean grew by only one percent, a figure Prime Minister Ingraham is hoping to help turn around.

“One of the things that we do not appreciate in the region is the extent to which we are not top of the world’s list in terms of travel anymore,” Mr. Ingraham said during a recent interview with the Bahama Journal.

“We have got to find a means by which we can increase our growth rate. We have become very expensive. We have not ensured that our infrastructure is up to acceptable standards in many respects and we in the region have got to find the means by which we can collaborate more than we are [doing] today.”

The data is still being collated but there are apparently doubts that The Bahamas reached the five million visitor mark in 2007, a feat that was achieved for the first time in 2004.

The latest figures from the Ministry of Tourism show that up to October 2007 just under four million visitors had chosen The Bahamas as a vacation destination, which was 3.8 percent less than the total tourists who visited these shores between January and October 2006.

The figures also showed that 2.3 million of those visitors who came to The Bahamas between January and October last year arrived in New Providence, while the other 540,000 were recorded for Grand Bahama and another one million traveled to the Family Islands.

Data also shows that in the month of October alone, there were over 298,000 tourist arrivals.

Tourism Minister Neko Grant has blamed a softening US economy – in part – for the less than stellar performance in tourist arrivals last year, a sentiment Tourism Director General Vernice Walkine echoed during a press conference announcing this year’s National Tourism Week, which kicked off this past Sunday.

“This year, there is even more urgency and importance placed on the conference. This is a time in which we see the United States, our largest and most lucrative tourism market, taking measures to fight off a possible recession,” Ms. Walkine said.

“The US dollar is weakening, consumerism is low and many middle-income families find themselves in a mortgage crunch…We must come together to discuss these things. There is nothing more important to our country and we should tackle these issues together.”

Ratings and services group Standard and Poors’ (S&P) revised report has pointed to some degree of concern for the pace of investments and tourism in The Bahamas.

In fact, the report noted the continuously below-par performance of the tourism sector.

Officials noted “the sector, which represents about 60 percent of The Bahamas’ GDP is expected to be negatively affected by the curbed demand from US consumers.

An estimated 85 percent of the tourists who come to The Bahamas are from the United States.

While bringing the keynote address at Caribbean Marketplace 2008, Prime Minister Ingraham recently called for creativity and imagination, which he said are critical for land-based tourism operators in the region.

“Of the total growth in Caribbean tourism over the last year or more, 60 percent of the growth was accounted for by Cuba and Santo Domingo,” Mr. Ingraham told the Journal.

“…So we are not doing as well as we ought to and we are going to have a major focus on doing better. The extent to which we have been able to attract high income persons has helped to compensate for a number of deficiencies.”

Tourism is not the only issue Prime Minister Ingraham is expected to focus on during his tenure as CARICOM chairman.

Mr. Ingraham is expected to continue CARICOM’s focus on functional cooperation – that is the extent to which the region can work together to improve education, healthcare, environmental standards as well as disaster management.

Source: Bahama Journal

A Coroner’s Court on Tuesday heard how pregnant U.S. reality T.V. star Anna Nicole Smith traveled with a satchel of pre scri ption drugs – including methadone – a narcotic that two toxicologists’ reports indicated caused her son’s death in September 2006.

South Carolina real estate developer, Ford Shelley, told the court that when he and his wife unpacked Ms. Smith’s belongings when she came for a visit in May 2006, he saw a pharmaceutically labeled bottle of methadone belonging to the former Playboy Playmate.

He testified that she had the drug in both the tablet and liquid form and that Ms. Smith traveled with a Coach duffle bag filled with her “medication.”

Methadone is used to wean heroine addicts from their addiction. It is also used as a pain killer.

“I never saw Anna personally take any of the medication. She told us what she was taking. I was concerned because of her pregnancy,” Mr. Shelley told the court Tuesday.

He said the pre scri ption drugs were made out to more than three different aliases that Ms. Smith used.

Mr. Shelley and his father-in-law, G. Ben Thompson, have been involved in legal wrangling with the Anna Nicole Smith estate over ownership of the Eastern Road Horizon home where the former starlet stayed while she resided here.

The litigation began before Ms. Smith died almost a year ago.

Mr. Shelley also told the court about witnessing Ms. Smith’s long-term companion, Howard K. Stern, find two pills in the jeans of her son (Daniel Smith) shortly after he died.

“He walked into the bathroom and flushed the two pills. I asked Howard what he had done and Howard said he ‘took care of a problem’,” Mr. Shelley recalled.

He said as far as he knew Daniel was not suicidal.

The real estate developer testified that Ms. Smith had stayed at his home in Myrtle Beach, the Florida Keys and in The Bahamas to get away from the media.

He said Ms. Smith had “a high-risk pregnancy” and did not want to have to deal with her baby’s father, Larry Birkhead.

Mr. Shelley told the court that Daniel was “a brilliant” and “awesome” kid, who loved his mother, but couldn’t handle her fame.

He remembered Daniel as “being afraid of his own shadow” and said he would never kill himself.

Under cross-examination, Mr. Stern’s attorney Wayne Munroe painted Daniel as a young man who suffered from serious depression and had recently broken up with his girlfriend.

Mr. Shelley’s testimony regarding the likelihood of Daniel’s death being a suicide conflicted with the evidence given by Dr. Lee Hern of the Medical Examiner’s Office in Miami Dade County.

Dr. Hern told the court that, “clearly the methadone was the key in understanding this death.”

“But for the methadone he would not have died.”

Asked by Director of Public Prosecutions, Bernard Turner, whether he thought the drug consumption was deliberate or unintentional, in his expert opinion, Dr. Hern said there was “a high degree of probability” that it was “an intentional ingestion.”

Substantiating his claim he pointed to the large amount ingested over a short period of time.

However, he said in order to determine whether a suicide occurred officials would have to look at other things like statements to the family and the history of the deceased.

Mr. Munroe pointed out that Daniel was on pre scri ption anti-depressants, was previously hospitalized for pain in July 2006 and was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit suffering from “serious depression.”

Daniel died in his mother’s Doctors Hospital room on Sunday, September 10, 2006 – three days after his mother gave birth to her second child.

Two toxicology reports – one produced by Dr. Hern’s office – indicated that Daniel had a combination of eight drugs in his system – a mixture of anti-depressants and stimulants.

Dr. Hern told the court that Daniel likely took the methadone tablets around 5:30am and 20 to 30 minutes later he would have become lethargic, enter into progressively deeper sleep and died two to three hours later.

Previous testimony from hospital officials indicated that a code blue alert went out for the young man around 9:40am.

Source: Bahama Journal

A Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) official has released details of the acts of sabotage the company believes are connected to last week’s industrial action.

In a statement issued yesterday, BTC said at least five acts of sabotage took place.

BTC Vice President of Marketing Marlon Johnson said while the company has no hard evidence to prove that any worker sabotaged anything, it is suspected because of timing.

“What we had are some cabinets that house the components in the neighborhoods where all the telephone lines link up. It’s where the telephone lines meet for distribution into the main feeder area,” he said.

“In cabinets in certain neighborhoods like Marshall Road, Muttonfish Drive, Sunshine Park, Flamingo Gardens and Cowpen Road…we have evidence where persons actually entered into the box and damaged the cable links which shut down the residential lines and some business lines in those areas.”

Last week, members of the Networking Services Division temporarily halted work in order to have their voice heard about a number of outstanding issues the union has with the management of BTC.

BTC officials said they were baffled as to why union members took action as the proper protocols were not being followed regarding industrial discontent.

“We are aware that there are several issues that were outstanding, however, when the union feels a grievance to the point where they are conducting industrial action, there is a process by which they file that grievance at the Ministry of Labour, and to our knowledge they haven’t filed that grievance. Industrial action takes place after you have filed that grievance,” he said.

Mr. Johnson declined to say what the details of the issues were.

“These are matters of ongoing dialogue. I don’t wish to prejudice the outcome of these issues by going into the details of them, but suffice it to say, the issues as we are aware are being managed within the confines of the discussion and dialogue that we have with the union on an ongoing basis,” he said.

Mr. Johnson added that some of the issues are longstanding.

In an interview with The Bahama Journal on Tuesday, Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU) President Robert Farquharson said he was shocked to hear of any illegal behaviour connected to last week’s industrial action or the union.

He said the BCPOU has been fully cooperative with BTC and denounced any acts of sabotage that may have been perpetrated on the company.

“Any attempt by BTC’s management to connect any acts of sabotage to the union is cruel and inhumane,” Mr. Farquharson said.

In the statement, BTC said the police have been called in to investigate the alleged acts of sabotage.

Source: Bahama Journal

We hope that there is a wind, a constant wind, or else the no-see-ums come out to bite us. And the wind is almost always a presence. We can hear the turquoise sea lapping the beach and old coral outcrops and the rattling of the coconut palm fronds. We can also hear a twittering or swishing sound, like a flock of birds that never gets closer or farther away. That is the quiet voice of the wind-driven propeller cranking out kilowatts for the Island School, on Eleuthera, The Bahamas.

The school is devoid of students just now and our family, all 18 of us, has descended on it for the Christmas holidays. We have the use of the girls’ and boys’ dormitories and some of the staff quarters since they are mostly away in the United States for Christmas. We also have the use of the bicycles, kayaks, and snorkelling gear, plus their modestly industrial kitchen and open-air dining hall. Our 31-year-old son, Christopher, started teaching at the Island School three years ago.

The real boss and founder is Chris Maxey, an ex-U.S. navy Seal, a Yale graduate and now environmental educator. Maxey’s dream, thanks to his energy and the hard work of many, has grown significantly over the school’s nine-year history. Its student-driven research has expanded into the Cape Eleuthera Institute and now Cape Systems Ltd. is promoting sustainable systems like solar hot-water heaters in the Bahamas.

Since the Island School started, it has spawned a middle school to offer new opportunities to local Bahamian students. Despite this growth, “small is beautiful” still rings true here. The school has an enviable pupil-teacher ratio of approximately three-to-one, with 48 students and 15 teachers. The kids are mostly 16- or 17-year-old American high-school students. They attend for only one semester but those 3 1/2 months are always life transforming in a positive way.

Since the 1960s, I have been giving talks on the hazards to the planet and individuals of our instant-pudding packaged world; this world might be sweet, smooth, convenient and quick, but it creates problems from depletion of resources to pollution to psychological stress. Children in our society are suffering from “nature deficit disorder” as described in the landmark book, Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv. Recent research has shown that bringing children back to nature and the outdoors will decrease obesity, attention deficit disorder, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, suicide and bullying. It also helps to improve academic achievement – just what the doctor ordered.

Our family is here in the Bahamas first and foremost to have family fun, but we will also be very busy learning from the school’s philosophy and setting, as well as exploring Eleuthera on land and under water.

With the constant wind comes the constant flapping of the Bahamian flag – blue and yellow stripes and black triangle. The flagpole is in the middle of the central compound and around it, when school is in session, the students and staff gather before sunrise to sing the national anthem of the Bahamas, make the day’s announcements and commence the hour-long run and swim – staff included. If anyone is late for the exercises, the assembled group – staff included – does push-ups until the tardy one arrives. After the run, there are campus-wide chores, then breakfast and then the school-day starts with all subjects related to the surrounding environment and culture.

In spite of unorthodoxy, it is fully accredited academically. The research station, dedicated mainly to marine biology, is attached to the school. It has real scientists who involve the students in genuine research projects.

For example, there are fish tanks, including one with tilapia, a very tasty, rapidly growing fish. The filtered tilapia water, still full of nutrients, is gravity-fed to a hydroponic operation for growing lettuce and other leafy vegetables. Vegetable table scraps are composted for the school’s orchard and nursery. The nonvegetarian scraps are fed to the pigs. Waste at the Island School is seen only as an opportunity. All of the school vehicles run on biodiesel, which is made on site from the free, used cooking oil that the school gets from the cruise ships visiting a small port facility nearby. Here again, a waste loop is closed.

For the duration of the semester, the school prohibits junk food, candy, the Internet and personal cellphones, those seemingly essential items in the life of teenage North Americans. The semester includes an eight-day ocean kayaking trip, two days of solo time almost out of sight of others on an immense beach.

The students also interact with the local Bahamian community in homestays, community projects, ball games and celebrations.

Thanks to a growing potential for scholarships at the Island School, the student body is diversifying from its original private school set. As these young men and women move into leadership positions in their various communities, they will be able to spread the ideas and philosophy of the school into a wider world. The students grow in physical strength, mind and especially spirit.

On the last day, all of the girls are in tears and most of the boys are, too. But the catch is that many of them have serious re-entry problems getting back into the great American way of life. We were told that some sit in their room and cry for the first few days because the modern lifestyle seems so hopeless and shallow.

Our son and the rest of the staff work with them to devise re-entry programs that would involve volunteering and organizing their friends to find ways of helping others. There is no question in my mind that all the young people of North America, in fact, the whole of society, would benefit from many of the things that the Island School is practising. Even small models are worth looking at.

Our family does our last pig feeding and says goodbye to the friendly barracuda that followed us on our snorkelling jaunts. As we stand around the bonfire singing “Auld Lang Syne,” I know that we have been at least a little changed in a positive way for 2008 and beyond. The breeze and the flag wave us goodbye as we head for the little airport.

Robert Bateman’s realistic painting style, featuring wildlife in its habitat, encourages examination of the natural world. He is a well-known artist, naturalist and spokesperson for many environmental and preservation issues. The subject of numerous books and films, his honours and awards include Officer of the Order of Canada.

Source: The Star