During the Natural History Conference at The College of the Bahamas, one thing that stood out was the small numbers of young, black Bahamians attending and even fewer presenting. They, according to many of the students I polled, do not see it as being important to their daily lives. The environment is not an issue.
I was thrown off course by that comment, as without the environment we inhabit, where would we actually be? Tourists only come to the Bahamas because of its natural beauty. In the meantime, the same tourist industry we arguably value so much is being threatened by lack of good environmental governance.
The government and the population have simply chosen to squander the beauty we now live in either through poor stewardship or through simple exploitation. The environment is seen as many see a woman - of less value.
In the Bahamas, gender bias is obvious in the way politicians talk about women. It is the same with the environment.
Over the last 20 years or so, it has become apparent that the country has opted to consume. We want more, but we value less what we have and even less what we gain.
The general society values very little the lives of others. Individuals do not value their own lives; their mortality is as important to them as shooting a bird. If they shoot someone today, they expect to be targeted tomorrow. We can sell the country without fear of being left homeless.
This addresses a prevailing notion of men not being taught to value their relationships with women. They are not taught to value anything, but neither are young women.
Young children are 'given' so much that those things they want hold very little value. When ministers of government argue that we should exploit what we have to enrich ourselves, their comments go farther and are heard louder than anything else shouted by anyone else.
When they say that men should spread their seed and joke about beating women, they are lauded; this is already the social norm for men.
So, we build a society where neither human nor inhuman resources are valued. While people say that we should protect our environment, the same way they say that we should not beat women, some of them are also the first to enrich themselves through exploiting the very land they claim to love.
The nation is only, then, as important as the next dime that will fall their way. When dimes are scarce, as they are now, we will sell off anything to get another one.
The role of government is so important in setting an example of how to govern one's home and land. This is even truer for the job of the prime minister.
His job is to hold the country in trust for the people, not sell it off. If the nation is so important that we value it, then it should be treated accordingly.
However, with the lack of value for humans comes a lack of value for anything that is bigger than ourselves, much like the place we live.
Given the rate at which we are exploiting, raping and pillaging the land and folk for the almighty dollar, the country will soon be lost. Government must manage the resources.
Yet, they have provided poor leadership when it comes to stewardship of the country's natural resources. Instead, they have sought to chop, cut, cleaver off, or hatchet out islands as if they could magically reproduce.
Given the government's addiction to selling off the sea, the air, the land, the sea floor, or, if not actively selling, allowing these to be privatized through lack of active management, the country will quickly become a private playground.
What is even more distressing about this is, as long as people are worried about feeding themselves and therefore willing to sell their children for a song or a phone card, they are not going to be concerned about selling a few measly miles of beach in some far-flung island where they will never visit. Why value what cannot be seen or touched when we do not value our own lives?
It is empty nationalism that talks about nation building but is willing to sell off the nation to the lowest bidder, and then to further indebt the population by agreeing to the developers' every whim.
At the same time, though, doing business in the Bahamas is extremely difficult and people complain. We bend over backwards to bring foreign companies in, then we make their lives difficult by not granting permits.
The job of government is to lead responsibly, hold land in trust, guard, preserve and develop a country, not destroy it through mismanagement and short-sightedness.
The development in Bimini is one example of this. The Bahamian government chose to ignore the EIA recommendation that more studies be conducted before actually beginning a project that will absolutely swamp Bimini and erase any vestige of Bahamian culture.
The current mess in Bimini brings to mind a legal case in Belize. Foreign investment should be secondary to creating a thriving nation.
It is a shame when government is willing to go against the law and the people to foster development. In the case, 'Belize Alliance of Non-governmental Agencies vs Belize Government,' the Privy Council makes it very clear that the government is responsible to the people.
"Belize has enacted comprehensive legislation for environmental protection and direct foreign investment, if it has serious environmental implications, must comply with that legislation," the court said.
"The rule of law must not be sacrificed to foreign investment, however desirable (indeed, recent history shows that in many parts of the world respect for the rule of law is an incentive, and disrespect for the rule of law can be a severe deterrent, to foreign investment). It is no answer to the erroneous geology in the EIA to say that the dam design would not necessarily have been different. The people of Belize are entitled to be properly informed about any proposals for alterations in the dam design before the project is approved and before work continues with its construction."
However, in The Bahamas, we seem to have this idea that government can do anything except their jobs, and get away with it. The Bahamas has chosen not to enact comprehensive legislation that would control the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the Bahamian world. It has instead chosen to develop at any cost. Governments have chosen, forgetting their hurling of fire and brimstone on their colleagues when in opposition, to commit the same sins they charged their neighbor with having committed. They will sell of the entire country and then look around in shock and blame someone else for not taking care of the country.
The Natural History conference sparked thoughts about unfettered development, especially as students complained about having to think about these things that seem so far away from them.
They have no relationship with the country or environment in which they live, so why should they value them? We have taught an entire generation that instant gratification and consuming everything are good, even if you have to steal or kill to do so.
When the man in the big house shows people that all they need to do is sell out their neighbor for a dollar, they learn that well, and they will easily kill their neighbor for 25 cents. Such is the importance of value.
Many politicians see no value in the country other than as a means to make as much as they can as quickly as possible, so why would anyone else want to behave any differently?
Is it impossible that young Bahamians will begin to work for the preservation of their own environment? Or is there a possibility that young, black children will see the value in understanding the workings of the environment and trying to work to save the Nassau Grouper, for example, so that they can have more in the future?
It is similar to when we teach a young man that women are worth less than men and then expect him not to abuse them. We have taught the youth to squander their environment.
Is our country of so little value to us that we are happy to divest ourselves of it and so become landless day laborers? We cannot expect the young to have value for anything if they do not see those values being demonstrated around them. Where do we see value for women or value for environment and country being shown?
o Ian Bethell Bennett is a professor at The College of The Bahamas.
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