The Bahamas National Trust (BNT) was praised as a global model and pioneer in the fight to protect the environment during the second annual Bahamas National History Conference.
Keynote speaker and accomplished international scientist Dr. David Campbell told the conference that over its nearly six decades in existence, the BNT has repeatedly stood out as a shining example, establishing landmark conservation policies and showing other countries the way forward.
"The BNT was a groundbreaking achievement. Its work has been great for The Bahamas," he said. "Few people understand how the Trust has really served as a model for the planet and one of the more effective, successful and ethical agencies to oversee wildlife and natural resources."
Dr. Campbell, who served as the executive director of the BNT during the 1970s, wrote the first ever natural history of The Bahamas, "The Ephemeral Islands", which lent its name to the theme of this year's conference.
He said he feels privileged to have been a part of the Trust's work during a revolutionary era.
"It was a time of great creativity on these islands in various different sectors - in scientific exploration, in establishment of rigorous laws to protect Bahamian natural history and in terms of education.
"This was the first time the Bahamas was being systematically mapped, land and sea, and this built on the illustrious tradition of the Trust's establishment and management of the Exuma Land and Sea Park back in the '50s.
"That was the first time that anybody established a park that recognized the integration of the land and sea. You can't protect one without the other."
"By the time I came along, these paradigms had been tested. It was a time when biological explorers were coming down here to do inventories of endangered species like the rock iguanas for example, and species that were abundant but threatened were also coming under surveillance."
The Trust, Dr. Campbell said, also played a key role in preserving the flamingos of Inagua at a time when the regional population had been decimated.
"That was a triumph - the flamingo was being relegated to a few small areas, except for in Inagua and no one really knew where it would end. But again, in the 1950s, the Trust hired wardens and they managed the population. It was actually growing when I was trust director," he said.
"The other thing that was quite instrumental was the Bahamas signing on to CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), that meant that all the other signatory nations were enforcing Bahamas wildlife conservation laws.
"It was really a renaissance time for science and its application to conservation and the Trust was absolutely focal in all of this."
And, Dr. Campbell said, he is delighted to see how far the BNT has come since then.
"I am pretty awed by the Trust today, and (current executive director) Eric Carey is doing a wonderful job," he said.
"Everything that I dreamed this Trust would grow into it has, and it's actually surpassed my hopes."

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