By ANGELO ARMBRISTER
Freeport News Reporter
The fight to save Guana Cay is now gaining international exposure as Grand Bahama Human Rights Association (GBHRA) President Fred Smith and other "Save Guana Cay" representatives are set to address the United Nations Commission on sustainable development.
Smith will be accompanied by Thomas Goreau, president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, and Troy Albury of the Save Guana Cay Reef Association, who also will make presentations at the summit, which will be broadcast live over the Internet at 1 p.m. today.
In an interview with the Freeport news before he left, Smith could hardly contain his excitement.
"I'm very proud to be representing The Bahamas and speaking on behalf of Save Guana Cay Reef Association and the Mangrove Action Project out of Bimini," he said. "We have been given a very rare and unique opportunity to speak before the United Nations Commission on sustainable development."
Smith explained that Goreau, who has been very active internationally in reef protection, arranged for the group to appear before the United Nations.
"We are going to speak about environmental protection, marsh land and mangrove protection and developments in so far as their impact on coastal zones," he said.
Noting that The Bahamas is an archipelago of 700 low-lying islands and cays, Smith said that climate change and global warming are things that Bahamians should be very much concerned about.
"In Grand Bahama we're only a couple of feet above the sea level so any little glacier that melts, we might be under water," he said. "So my speech is going to be focused on what laws exist in The Bahamas for environmental protection, the policies of the Bahamian government and the profile of development in The Bahamas."
The Human Rights activists said that his address will focus primarily on Save Guana Cay and how it mirrors what is happening generally in The Bahamas as it relates to foreign real estate developers, "who come here and are mainly interested in making a quick dollar and leaving.
"The reason these developers are coming here is because they keep finding these beautiful, untouched, pristine, virgin coastlines, coastal zones, so we want to keep them that way, because they don't have them in South Florida in the U.S. anymore," he said. "Bimini and Guana Cay have been very hard hit by this, and we are hoping to alert the international environmental community to the devastation and environmental rape that has gone on in The Bahamas, particularly under the PLP (Progressive Liberal Party) administration over the last five years."
Smith noted that former Pime Minister Perry Christie has declared April as coastal awareness month, but he has failed to appreciate the absolute and fundamental importance of mangroves.
"They provide fishery nurseries, they are the eco-system between the salt water and our land and they are the ones that act as a sponge and a filter for the growth of land in The Bahamas," Smith said. "The wetlands and mangroves creep and grow and actually build land."
If it were not for mangroves in The Bahamas, Smith said there would not probably ber very much Bahamas.
"They are the land growers of The Bahamas and at the same time provide the protection and the fishery resources for conch and lobster and shrimp and all kinds of small fish and in particular the lemon shark in Bimini," Smith said.
He noted that those same mangrove areas are sold to foreign developments as crown land that appears to be worthless.
The mangroves, he said, are given away to developer's and are dredged for mega yacht marinas, exclusive golf courses, exclusive second homes, small resort hotels and gated communities.
Smith said that he wants the new Free National Move-ment (FNM) government to be aware that, "we are going to be watching them every step of the way.
"We are hoping that this is the first international alarm raised at the beginning of the FNM, term so that they make good on their promises to protect the environment, promote respect of the environment," he said, adding that he is very keen on having Environmental Protection Act passed as soon as possible.
Smith invites any persons that maybe interested in environmental protection in The Bahamas to log on the United Nations website to hear his address live at 1 p.m. today.
