The Tribune

• Deadly coral disease fight set back a year

• Researchers losing ‘tens of thousands’ 

• ‘Real reputational damage’ in hold-ups

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The fight against a deadly coral disease, and preservation of endangered species, have been undermined by a bureaucratic bottleneck that is “debasing” Bahamian science and reduced it to near-standstill, Tribune Business can reveal.

Dr Nick Higgs, head of research and innovation at Cape Eleuthera Institute - the Island School, said yesterday that the scientific and environmental community’s year-long inability to obtain the necessary permits “boggles my mind” and has reached the stage where it is “doing real damage to our country’s” reputation internationally.

Revealing that the National Science Foundation, the largest scientific research grant financier in The US and, potentially, the world, is now diverting applicants away from The Bahamas, he disclosed that the near-total halt to such activities in this nation had cost the Cape Eleuthera Institute itself “tens of thousands of dollars” in lost research funding.

Dr Higgs said this had been repeated among multiple students and scientific non-profits, with the result that smaller ones, such as the Centre for Ocean Research and Science in Gregory Town, Eleuthera, had temporarily closed because all their financing sources had dried up in the absence of permits legally enabling them to do their work.

Branding the situation a “crisis”, he blamed it on the Biological Resources and Traditional Knowledge Act that was passed into law last year by the former Minnis administration and implemented on April 1, 2021. Arguing that it was based on “misguided idealism”, Dr Higgs said it introduced a new scientific and environmental permitting system that the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection (DEPP) simply does not have the capacity to execute.

He added that it had created a one-size-fits all system where non-profit, conservation and student-based research was subject to the same regulatory burden as “high risk” commercial activities, such as bioprospecting. And the sanctions for non-permitted research created “unconscionable liabilities” for non-profits that were akin to “charging the Red Cross to come in and do relief.”

The unworkable system outlined by Dr Higgs (see column on Page 3B) has also disrupted efforts to save The Bahamas’ coral systems, vital to tourism, fisheries and hurricane protection, from the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD). Dr Craig Dahlgren, executive director of the Perry Institute for Marine Science, which is leading the fight against this disease, yesterday said they are now playing “catch up” after the necessary research permits were delayed for a year.

Had the Institute, and the Task Force created by the Government to fight Stony Coral disease, been able to begin operations earlier, he said might have been able to treat more coral and slow/prevent its spread to at least five other Bahamian islands and possibly across the whole archipelago.

Describing Stony Coral Disease as the equivalent of “COVID or Ebola” for coral, Dr Dahlgren said it was threatening to do in five years what climate change will impose in 20-30. “We were the ones that discovered it in The Bahamas, and first documented it, the spread, and produced some papers on it,” Dr Dahlgren said. “That led to the creation of the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) Task Force by the Cabinet.

“We were on that to develop a strategy for The Bahamas for dealing with the disease. It was back in 2020 when we discovered it. The Task Force was formed at the end of June 2020, and then April 1, 2021, came. That was when the new permitting system was enforced under the Biological Resources and Traditional Knowledge Act, and that’s when everything kind of shut down. Even though we had a signed contract to do the work, we were unable to get any permits to do it.”

The Perry Institute for Marine Science finally obtained the necessary permit to move ahead in March this year, meaning that 12 months or a whole year had been wasted in the Stony Coral Disease fight. “We are actually treating that disease and assessing it now. We’re playing catch up after being held up for a year. We are able to do what we need to do,” Dr Dahlgren told this newspaper.

The year-long hiatus also played havoc with the research team’s funding. He explained that The Bahamas Protected Area Fund had pledged financing, but withdrew this after six months because the permitting hold-up meant no work could proceed.

While sufficient funding is now available once again after the permit’s issuance, Dr Dahlgren reiterated that he and his team are now “playing catch up”. Illustrating the very real consequences of the hold-up, both for The Bahamas and the industries that depend on its coral and reefs, he explained: “We know it has spread to at least five new locations where it was not before; five different islands in that time.

“In 2020, it was confirmed in New Providence and Grand Bahama. Now we have it confirmed in Abaco, San Salvador, Long Island, the Berry Islands and unconfirmed cases in other locations. Had we been able to act earlier we might have been able to do something to stop the spread or been able to get to new areas right away to be able to treat the growth and prevent the spread,” Dr Dahlgren said. “We’re in a much worse situation now than we could have been had we acted earlier.”

As to Stony Coral disease’s impact, he added that The Bahamas had to look no further than Florida where at least one coral species had become extinct in the wild. “We’re starting to see more of it in the more vulnerable species in The Bahamas. The coral populations are a mere shadow of what they were 30, 40, 50 years ago because of climate change and other impacts, and this disease is likely to end coral reefs in The Bahamas as we know them,” Dr Dahlgren warned.

“Climate change is acting on a 20-30 year timeframe; this disease is acting on a five-year timeframe. Climate change is the bigger beast. Climate change is cancer, but this one is COVID or Ebola for coral. It’s going to wipe them out before climate change. I’m very grateful we’re able to go out and do stuff now. It would be nice to have had the permit two years ago. We’d be in a much better place if we were able to do something.”

The Biological Resources and Traditional Knowledge Act, which was brought to Parliament by former environment minister Romauld Ferreira, was billed as plugging a loophole that has enabled foreign exploitation of The Bahamas’ biological and genetic resources without this nation earning a cent. It was designed to establish a regulatory, permitting and revenue-sharing regime with companies seeking to research and exploit this nation’s marine genetic resources.

The Act introduced by Mr Ferreira created an Access to Benefit Sharing (ABS) committee that is supposed to review and make recommendations on whether to approve research and development applications by companies seeking to exploit The Bahamas’ genetic resources.

The committee, which is supposed to be staffed by civil servants from multiple government agencies, recommends to the Competent National Authority - the entity in charge of all matters related to biological diversity - whether to approve such permits, and provides advice on the revenue/benefit sharing terms agreed with private sector entities.

However, the Island School’s Dr Higgs said the Act had resulted in multiple unintended consequences that have effectively halted scientific and environmental research over the past year. Arguing that the DEPP has been “tinkering at the edges” to-date, he added that the sector was eagerly awaiting legislative reforms that have been promised - and are being worked on - by the Davis administration (see other article on Page 1B).

“Until then it’s been a year of nothing,” Dr Higgs told Tribune Business, adding that himself and a team working on a project with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were still waiting for answers on a dozen applications. “I’ve had resignations because of this. My staff, my research scientists, some of them are doing PhDs and cannot wait a year. Some of them have been unable to do research for a year.

“We’re bringing scientific capacity into The Bahamas. There just seems to be no urgency to the issue. We’ve lost tens of thousands of dollars in research funding; just us alone. Some smaller organisations, like the Centre for Ocean Research and Science in Gregory Town, Eleuthera, have just closed up shop.

“The smaller organisations are kind of at risk because they don’t have the diverse income streams that we do. They cannot get grants, they cannot get money, they cannot work and go bust.... It’s starting to bite. The National Science Foundation, the largest funder of scientific research in the US if not globally, is actually diverting people away from The Bahamas,” Dr Higgs continued.

“If someone applies for funding in The Bahamas, they’re saying: ‘Look somewhere else’.” As another example, he added that a group of visiting scientists from the US thought they had obtained the necessary permit in January 2022, and paid the required $9,600 fee, but have “not heard anything since” from the DEPP.

Pinpointing the cause of these woes, Dr Higgs said: “The hold-up is that they built a system that doesn’t have the capacity to actually execute. It was driven by idealism, misguided idealism, and the DEPP doesn’t have the staff to execute in reality.

“At a meeting with the DEPP in January, they called a conclave, and before they started their presentation on this topic said they have just three officers dealing with hundreds of applications. Until those permits come through, nothing can be done legally... The system needs a complete overhaul.

“No one who understands how research works in this world could be involved with putting this legislation together. It’s so divorced from the reality of how science and research works. I can’t believe that anyone in that area is involved in putting together this legislation and regime,” Dr Higgs continued.

“The scientific community was not consulted, and we weren’t privy to any of the details before it became law. I would challenge anyone involved to stick their head above the parapet because I guarantee they’re ashamed.”

Dr Higgs said the previous DEPP director, Rochelle Newbold, had hailed the Act as “leading the way, and how other countries were saying we’re the model. We said: ‘Are you crazy? They’re looking on in absolute horror at what’s unfolding here’.”

While the Biological Resources and Traditional Knowledge Act was supposed to have created a ‘one-stop shop’, where all scientific and research permit applications would be dealt with and approved/declined in one place, Dr Higgs said all it had done was create “another layer” of bureaucracy and red tape because applicants were still being told they had to obtain the go-ahead from the likes of the Department of Marine Resources.

Calling on reforms to the Act to be “front and centre in the public policy space”, Dr Higgs said: “I feel like we are being heard and taken seriously by the Attorney General’s Office, and they are working to get this done. I just want to know they are committed to pushing it over the line and not one of these issues put on the back burner because it’s doing real damage to our country’s reputation. We need to know this stuff will be taken over the line and is on the agenda.’

See Monday’s Tribune Business for more....