“Soar Higher”, and “Reel in Your Success” were the charges given by the Honorable I. Chester Cooper, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of
Tourism, Investments and Aviation to the nation’s first cohort of graduates in the Bahamas Agricultural and Marine Science Institute’s (BAMSI) flats fishing and nature tour guide certification programs on Monday, January 29th, 2024. The graduation ceremony, which took place at the BAMSI Campus in North Andros, celebrated the accomplishments of forty trained and newly certified guides.
In his keynote address, the Deputy Prime Minister told the graduates that they were about to go on record as being among the first guides in The Bahamas to be awarded national certification in their areas of expertise. He pledged that this would be accomplished via assistance from the Tourism Development Corporation (TDC) while informing the audience that our country benefitted from an estimated one hundred sixty-nine million dollars (US $169,286,031.00) in economic output from flats fishing in 2018. He further stated that through nature guiding, The Bahamas stands to gain equally from the multi-billion-dollar global birding and burgeoning nature-based tourism markets world-wide.
Tourism Industry Travel Trends indicate that there is now a sustained upsurge in interest by eco- conscious Millennials and younger travellers in nature-based experiences that integrate sustainable environmental and heritage activities for travellers, and in regenerative travel, which allows them to give back to the destinations they visit, thus boosting expenditure directly within local communities.
The tourism minister said that a major goal of his ministry is to expand ownership of the tourism industry to local entrepreneurs who are equipped with the skills and knowledge to sustainably take their nature-based tourism businesses to the next level. In attendance at the graduation ceremony were several high-level government officials including the Honorable Leon Lundy, M.P., South and Central Andros and Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister; the Honorable Leonardo Lightbourne, M.P., North Andros and The Berry Islands and Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Works and Family Island Affairs; Senator, Tyrel Young, Executive Chairman, Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute; Senator, Randy Rolle; and Dr. Raveenia Roberts-Hanna, President, Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute The Fisheries Resources (Jurisdiction and Conservation Act) (Flatsfishing) Regulations, established in 2017, requires all flats fishing guides in The Bahamas to be certified and licensed, and as the premier tertiary institution for marine science, the Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) is considered well positioned to deliver the certification.
The nationally accredited certification courses offered by BAMSI in flats fishing and nature tour guiding were made possible due in part to cash and in-kind contributions provided by the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, Investments and Aviation (MOTIA) in collaboration with Compete Caribbean Partnership Facility (CCPF) and the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO). Additional technical, financial, and in-kind support was received from Audubon Society of the Americas as well as other corporate businesses, government and non-governmental organizations represented on the National Steering Committee of the Andros Community- Based Tourism Cluster Project.
The Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute’s Youth Employment Andros Cluster Scholarship Program was launched by Memorandum of Agreement and in strategic partnership with MOTIA and CTO in the frame of the CCPF-funded Andros Community-Based Tourism Project. As a result, subsidized training has focused almost exclusively on flats fishing training and certification of the youth in Andros; however, with the conclusion of the Project, the training and certification programme will now be open to the general public.
From: Bahamas Information Services
