Megatourism, intensive fishing, and sewage, sewage, sewage

To help save the reefs of the Bahamas, get active with these groups:

Caribbean Marine Research Center

Clean Islands International, Inc.

Earthwatch U.S.A.

Earthwatch Europe

Hunting Aquatic Resources

Oceanographic Expeditions

Reef Environmental Education Foundation

Society for Environmental Education

First Columbus, Now This: Earthwatch volunteers investigate coral bleaching on the reefs of San Salvador, Bahamas. Photo: Earthwatch

Bahamian corals are stressed predominantly by sewage runoff and its close cousin, tourism. Low-rent dive operators proliferate, dropping uninitiated tourists onto reefs without a word of instruction about how to prevent damage to corals. Upscale tourism is little better; the Bahamas Out Islands Promotion Board, ignoring the inevitable stresses that increased tourism will cause, paid in 1996 to produce a video with Jean-Michel Cousteau that highlights the attractions of previously uncrowded reefs on San Salvador's Out Island. According to a PR firm that helped publicize the shoot, Cousteau's dubious rationale was that increased visitation to the reefs would convert tourists to "Ambassadors of the Environment." And in the decline-of-Western-civilization department, Travel Weekly reported in 1996 that Walker's Cay Hotel and Marina offered a "world-renowned shark dive" that allowed guests to "cling to a small coral reef while watching as many as 200 sharks feed on a 'chumsicle.'"