The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

I was saddened to read in The Tribune the article about a newly emergent marine epidemic that in the past five months has spread rapidly over 20 percent of the coral reefs in Grand Bahama’s national parks. Apparently, there is no cure.

“Corals found throughout The Bahamas are the building blocks of reef ecosystems. We have known for decades that coral reefs face many threats such as natural predators, climatic changes and human interference, but this recent discovery of a deadly coral disease in our national parks is the gravest threat to corals in Grand Bahama and throughout the archipelago,” explained Lakeshia Anderson, parks director, Bahamas National Trust,” The Tribune reported.

The Bahama islands sit on coral reefs. Does this suggest that over time the base on which our islands are grounded is disintegrating beneath us? In the past when the Bahamas has lost one livelihood it has moved with ups and downs into another way of surviving, even over time moving from strength to strength. However, if we are now threatened with sinking into the depths of the ocean can one finally say “Amen” to our country!

When I was a child the sponge industry succeeded the bootleg boom as the Bahamas’ main stock in trade. I remember the market wharf and a site just east of the Public Library on the northern side of Shirley Street being piled high with sponges and Bahamian men and women sitting on stools or on the ground cross-legged busily sorting them. There was also a large sponge storage area on a site opposite the western esplanade. Everywhere one turned there were sponges. I always heard them talk of the choice sponges – I believe one was called velvet— that the colony sent as a gift to Queen Victoria, who lived until 1901 — the 66 Steps located in the Fort Fincastle area, hewn out of limestone, mark the years of her reign. The sponge industry was established in the Bahamas in the 1880’s and many of today’s leading Bahamian-Greek families can trace their lineage to the Greeks who came to the Bahamas to dive the sponges that put the little Bahamas on the map, and even into a queen’s bedchamber!

The US Civil Aeronautics Board Reports that the Bahamas had periods of prosperity from the growing of pineapples in the 1889’s and citrus fruit at the turn of the century. Hawaii and Cuba drove the Bahamas out of the pineapple business, and the citrus industry died when Florida started to grow citrus fruits. An active sponge industry lasted from 1890 until a water-borne disease killed the sponge beds just before World War II.

The Bahamas has been a tourist resort for over 200 years, but no serious efforts were made to promote tourist travel to the colony on a year-round basis until approximately 1950. Prior to that date, only winter tourists were sought. In 1949, after World World War II, the winter tourist trade stabilized at approximately 32,000 visitors annually. Faced with a rapidly growing population, no minerals, poor soil, and the death of the sponge beds, the Bahamas government decided it was necessary to put the tourist trade on a year-round basis in an attempt to provide the population with an adequate standard of living.

And now we have the deadly coronavirus pandemic, which has already killed our highly successful cruise and tourist industry. As we hunker down to beat it a new Bahamas will emerge. It will certainly be interesting to see what path we take this time. When it ends we shall have to be far more self sufficient, and learn to provide enough home grown produce to reduce our foreign exchange.

Whatever path our country takes, the next few years will certainly present belt tightening challenges.

It would be interesting to know what our fellow Bahamians think the future holds and what path our country might take this time.

HOPING FOR BETTER TIMES

Nassau

April 27, 2020