location: Bahamas

location: Bahamas

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As Bahamas offshore project falls flat, oil driller island-hops across Caribbean
- Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC), which started oil exploration in Bahamian waters last December despite opposition from environmental groups, has failed to find commercially viable reserves.
- An exploratory well the company drilled between Dec. 20 and Feb. 7, about 240 kilometers (150 miles) from the Florida coast, will now be sealed and abandoned.
- It is not clear if BPC has stopped its drilling activities for good, but activists are calling for a permanent ban on oil drilling in Bahamian waters.
- BPC said it would now focus its activities on Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname, where heavyweights like ExxonMobil and Total already have a presence.

Environmentalists seek to block Bahamas oil drilling bid near U.S. coast
- This month, Bahamas Petroleum Company is set to begin exploratory oil drilling in Bahamian waters, about 240 kilometers (150 miles) from the Florida coast.
- Environmental groups have approached the Bahamian Supreme Court, seeking an immediate stay on the company’s drilling operations; they say the government unlawfully granted permits to drill.
- Environmentalists, many of them based in the U.S., oppose the project citing potential impacts on nearby marine protected areas, fish stocks, and the effect of spills in Bahamian and U.S. waters.
- The company says that the island nation’s economy, battered by the effects of Hurricane Dorian in 2019 and COVID-19 this year, could rebound on the back of oil revenues and much-needed jobs from drilling.

Meet the 2020 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners
- This year marks the 31st anniversary of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, which honors one grassroot activist from each of the six inhabited continents.
- The 2020 prize winners are Kristal Ambrose from The Bahamas, Chibeze Ezekiel from Ghana, Nemonte Nenquimo from Ecuador, Leydy Pech from Mexico, Lucie Pinson from France, and Paul Sein Twa from Myanmar.

As hurricane season ends, now is the time to take local action to rebuild and recover (commentary)
- As the 2019 hurricane season comes to an end, now is the time to consider action on the local scale, in spite of the helplessness we may feel in the face of global change.
- It’s no coincidence that the islands most devastated by Hurricanes Matthew and Dorian were Grand Bahama, Abaco, Andros, and New Providence. Recently published coastal risk maps show these are the islands most exposed to flooding and erosion — which is critical information for recovery and rebuilding efforts.
- In our built world, we often forget about the natural defenses that kept us safe before we started tearing them down. Mangrove forests, coral reefs, and seagrass beds naturally envelop islands, weakening waves and storm surges. Protections are needed for coastal habitats that are still intact, and restoration is needed for degraded shorelines. As developed countries like the United States have learned, it costs millions of dollars more to restore natural defenses than to conserve them wisely in the first place.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Hobby-grade drones can monitor marine animals beneath the surface
- Researchers in The Bahamas have been testing just how good drone videos can be for estimating the abundance and distribution of large marine animals found just beneath the ocean’s surface.
- They flew aerial surveys using commercial-grade drones along six tidal creeks facing high and low human impact, to count sharks, rays, and sea turtles — groups that are both threatened and difficult to monitor. The findings from multiple sites suggest that shoreline development negatively affects the abundance and distribution of various marine species.
- The study also showed that using lower-cost consumer drones equipped with video cameras could help researchers effectively and non-invasively estimate abundance of these marine megafauna in shallow waters and compare data across sites.

Underwater tech unlocks the secrets of The Bahamas’ Exuma Sound
- Scientists in The Bahamas plunged 800 meters (2,624 feet) into the Exuma Sound in manned submersibles for two separate expeditions, carried out in April and August this year.
- Using high-tech cameras, lights and sensors, researchers mapped the underwater terrain, collected samples and obtained footage of rare and undocumented deep-sea species.
- The team hope their research will further conservation efforts in the area, specifically the creation of new marine protected areas that include deep-water habitats.

Rare bird, feared extinct after hurricane, is spotted in Bahamas again
- The Bahama nuthatch (Sitta insularis), known only from a small pine forest on the island of Grand Bahama, some 84 kilometers (52 miles) east of Palm Beach, Florida, was thought to have gone extinct after Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
- But two recent, independent expeditions have yielded sightings of the bird again.
- Only a handful of individuals have been spotted, though, and researchers fear that chances of reviving the species’ population look bleak.

Queen conch dying out in the Bahamas despite marine parks
- There has been a major decline in the population of protected queen conchs in the Bahamas’ Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park over the last 20 years.
- The most recent survey found predominantly older queen conchs, with a shortage of juveniles to replace them.
- Researchers believe overfishing in upstream areas has depleted the park’s larval supply. Increased predator density within the park may also be a problem for juveniles.
- Queen conch fisheries outside protected areas in the Bahamas are experiencing intense fishing pressure and are near collapse.

New boa species “on its way to extinction” discovered in the Bahamas
- Like all members of the Boidae family, to which it belongs, the Bahamian silver boa or Conception Bank silver boa is a nonvenomous, constricting snake.
- In a paper published last month in the journal Breviora describing the new species, the team writes that the snake should not only be listed as critically endangered based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List criteria but that it is “one of the most endangered boid snakes globally.”
- Conservation measures are now being developed with local organizations, including the Bahamas National Trust, in order to protect the snake and prevent it from going extinct.

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