Paradise lost? How cruise companies are ‘eating up’ the Bahamas

Another vast tourist resort project promising jobs and prosperity. But critics say such developments imperil the pristine environments they advertise

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Joseph Darville has fond memories of swimming with his young son off the south coast of Grand Bahama island, and watching together as scores of dolphins frolicked offshore. A lifelong environmentalist now aged 82, Darville has always valued the rich marine habitat and turquoise blue seas of the Bahamas, which have lured locals and tourists alike for generations.

The dolphins are now mostly gone, he says, as human encroachment proliferated and the environment deteriorated. You don't see them now; the jetskis go by and frighten them off.

Joseph Darville is worried that the big cruise lines and developers will come in and eat what's left of our country'. Photograph: Richard Luscombe/the Guardian