The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP and

NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Reporters

Environmentalists last night voiced alarm after a "limited" inspection by government dive teams detected "significant damage to marine assets" caused by cruise ships anchoring in the Berry Islands.

Eric Carey, The Bahamas National Trust's (BNT) executive director, who told Tribune Business he alerted the Government to the fears being expressed by those islands' fishermen, said he had not seen the Government's release but described its findings as "concerning".

"I cannot comment on what they have found," he said of the Government's dive team, "but with so many cruise ships in an area for so long with anchors the size of small buses and chains dragging all around, it is likely there is significant damage."

The Government has allowed numerous cruise ships, many of whom fly the Bahamian flag, to anchor in this nation's waters since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic because their home ports simply do not have the capacity to accommodate all vessels due to the sector's global shutdown.

Around 14 cruise ships are thought to be anchored in the Berry Islands close to several of the industry's private islands, including Royal Caribbean's Coco Cay and Norwegian Cruise Lines' Great Stirrup Cay.

However, Berry Islands fishermen, in the social media voice notes referred to by Mr Carey, are raising the alarm that the cruise vessels' anchors and chains are inflicting serious damage on coral reefs and marine life as they drag along the ocean floor.

Praising the Government's prompt response, the BNT chief said the organisation planned to send its own dive team to the Berry Islands to assess the fishermen's claims and the extent of any environmental damage to the seabed and marine resources.

Mr Carey added that the Trust would also work with international environmental groups if the situation demanded it, and will assist government to determine which ships and cruise lines are responsible for any damage by using tracking devices to pinpoint which vessels were present when.

The BNT executive director added that the recent passage of the Environmental Planning and Protection Act into law has given The Bahamas "fairly robust legislation" with "the legal teeth to be able to address issues like this" in terms of levying sanctions/obtaining financial compensation from the cruise lines involved.

He spoke after the Government, in a statement last night, said it dispatched divers from the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and the Department of the Environment to the Berry Islands to carry out anchorage site inspections in response to the concerns.

"The initial dive, which was limited in scope, clearly showed significant damage to marine assets allegedly caused by anchors of vessels anchoring in the area," the Government said. "These initial findings necessitate a comprehensive assessment of much of the area between the Berry Islands and Bimini.

"While safeguarding our people and our resources, we have been a responsible partner to the cruise industry and vessels in distress. However, our first priority is to be great stewards of the essential and valuable marine resources that helped make The Bahamas such a special place in the global community."

The added that a reminder had been sent to all vessels anchoring in Bahamian waters that they must comply with all environmental and other laws/regulations mandated by The Bahamas. The Government said it would seek to quantify the value of any damage, revenue losses to Bahamian stakeholders such as fishermen and associated remediation costs.

It also promised to determine if any gaps exist in Bahamian law and policies that permit such events to occur, and to then "engage those responsible so that they would, in the shortest possible time, take corrective actions".

Meanwhile, Casuarina McKinney–Lambert, the Bahamas Reef Environment Education Foundation (BREEF) executive director, said cruise ships should be given designated anchor-zones in an attempt to stop any reef damage.

She told Tribune Business: “Since February and March the cruise ships haven’t been operating, but we have dozens in Bahamian waters just hovering and waiting until they are able to operate again.

“We’re very concerned, and the fishermen in the Berry Islands have been sending voice notes around expressing their concerns as well. Albeit many of these are anchored in our waters and these anchors are the size of a bus. They are huge, and they have massive chains and, as they are swinging in the breeze, these chains just slice the coral heads off and do damage to the bottom of the ocean. This is something that we are very concerned about. I have seen these anchors dropped in the water personally and what they do to the reefs. It is horrible.”

Ms McKinney-Lambert said BREEF and other environmental organisations are investigating, and added: "Nobody is addressing this issue of damage to the sea floor. So I don’t know what they are allowed to be doing, if there has been designated anchoring zones where the sea floor has been surveyed and there are no coral heads in that area. In other countries they have designated anchor zones and the government would say you are allowed to anchor here, but not anchor there because this is a sensitive habitat.

“In the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos, there has been some highly publicised events where ships were anchoring in marine protected areas or in other areas where they are not supposed to be anchoring. They do a lot of damage and they are fined for it. We don’t seem to have those designated zones in The Bahamas and we need to.

She continued: “There are some new provisions in the Environmental Planning and Protection Act that referred to ship groundings and similar anchor damage. This is something BREEF has been working on for a long time in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment to say that this type of damage, people have been getting away with it for way too long in The Bahamas and they wold never be able to get away with this type of damage in other countries in the region and around the world.

"We need to put our foot down and say the new normal going forward cannot be allowing this type of damage that destroys the marine environment for decades and hundreds of years."