Learning from the Land: Sustainable Living Practices in Bahamian Culture

When Ava Turnquest writes that “regeneration is remembering,” she is pointing to something many sustainability guides miss: the Bahamian archipelago has never been a blank slate for environmental ideas. The practices now called “regenerative” — closed-loop food systems, natural building materials, community-managed fisheries — have deep roots in generations of subsistence farming, bush medicine, and communal stewardship across the 700 islands and cays. The question this guide explores is not whether Bahamian culture is “sustainable,” but rather which ancestral practices are being reclaimed and adapted today, and where the tensions lie between tradition, tourism, and ecological crisis.

Regenerative Food Forests and the Return to Ancestral Farming

On the campus of the Centre for Training and Innovation in Rock Sound, Eleuthera, a one-acre plot is being transformed into what agriculture consultant Tim Hauber calls a regenerative food forest. The design mimics natural forest ecosystems: a canopy of diverse fruit trees shades shorter plants beneath, while grasses and legumes cut regularly provide mulch that enriches soil without chemical fertilizers. Once fully established — roughly five to seven years — the system requires virtually no external inputs.

Hauber notes that similar projects have been adopted in Australia and Brazil, but the technique itself “is actually a return to a natural forest model existing since the beginning of time.” Many Bahamian ancestors grew food in small subsistence plots using the same principles — intercropping, organic matter cycling, planting by lunar phases — before industrial agriculture replaced diversity with chemical-dependent monocrops. The One Eleuthera Foundation, which runs the project alongside CTI, sees the food forest as a demonstration model for farmers who are cautious about changing practices because livelihoods are at stake.

Fifteen fruit species are planned for the plot, which sits beside a 1.1-acre retractable-roof cooling house called The Oasis Grow House. Tours of both operations can be booked through The Retreat Hotel front desk. The project aligns with broader efforts to reduce the Bahamas’ heavy reliance on food imports — a vulnerability that Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Vaughn P. Miller framed at the 2024 UNCCD COP16 in Riyadh as a matter of national security, noting that rising import bills “exacerbate national vulnerabilities.”

Bush Medicine, Backyard Farming, and the Knowledge Gap

The phrase “bush medicine” covers a vast repertoire of plant-based remedies passed down through families, especially on islands like Andros and Exuma where older generations still gather wild herbs for teas, poultices, and tonics. The Bahamas.com sustainability portal explicitly lists bush tea alongside straw work and traditional sloop sailing as cultural practices tied to environmental stewardship. Yet the transmission of this knowledge is uneven. School gardens, like those supported by the Harbour Island Green School and the Island School on Eleuthera, now teach children to grow food and identify medicinal plants — a deliberate bridge between generations.

Backyard farming — growing staples like cassava, sweet potatoes, and okra in home plots — remains common in many settlements, though the practice has declined in urbanized Nassau and Freeport. The regenerative vision articulated by Turnquest includes sourcing school lunches from farmers markets and using native plants to restore coastal ecosystems. The Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) offers online certificates in sustainable agriculture, while the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection (DEPP) regulates land use to balance development with food production.

Circular Systems: From Coconut Husks to Junkanoo Costumes

The idea that waste should feed something else — not simply be disposed of — has both ancestral and contemporary expressions. Historically, coconut husks became planting fiber, kitchen scraps fed animals or compost, and fishing waste fertilized garden plots. Today, that circular logic appears in initiatives like the Bahamas Plastic Movement, which creates art and educational programs around plastic reduction, and in Junkanoo and Carnival costumes constructed from recycled fabric and discarded materials.

The Single Use Plastics Ban — which eliminated plastic bags and styrofoam containers — represents government-level circular thinking, though enforcement varies by island. On Grand Bahama, a 15-million-dollar solar farm is under development. The regenerative principle of eliminating the need for plastic rather than just recycling it echoes the ancestral practice of using natural materials (gourds, woven palm fronds, clay) that simply returned to the earth.

Water management follows similar logic: rainwater barrels and cisterns were once universal, and contemporary projects like Mission for Mangroves (run by the Bahamas Protected Areas Fund) restore coastal ecosystems that naturally filter water and buffer storm surges. The Nature Conservancy has worked in the Bahamas for more than 20 years on marine protected areas and sustainable fishing initiatives that combine scientific monitoring with traditional knowledge.

Community Stewardship and the Role of NGOs

The Bahamas Destination Stewardship Council, launched by the Ministry of Tourism, Investments & Aviation, coordinates island-specific councils — including the Eleuthera Sustainability Council Cooperative and the South Andros and Mangrove Cay Destination Stewardship Council — that develop workshops, install solar lighting, and maintain local sites like the Hatchet Bay cave. These bodies are members of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, the nonprofit that sets global destination management standards.

Dozens of NGOs operate across the islands, often with overlapping missions. The Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation (BREEF) provides on-the-ground instruction for Bahamian environmental stewards and actively restores reef habitats. The Perry Institute for Marine Science leads ocean conservation through scientific research. Coral Vita restores reefs using micro-fragmentation and land-based coral farming. The Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, in partnership with the government, helped establish six nationally protected bonefish conservation zones.

On the land side, Friends of the Environment on Abaco, founded in 1988 by four Hope Town residents, focuses on environmental education and clean-up. The Bahamas National Trust (BNT) manages national parks across the archipelago. The Bahamas Caves Research Foundation has supplied the government with more cave and karst data than any other research group, contributing to land management policy.

Context and Comparison: Regeneration vs. Sustainability, Tradition vs. Modernity

The distinction between “sustainability” and “regeneration” matters in the Bahamian context. Sustainability, as Turnquest and others frame it, aims to do less harm — reduce plastic use, lower emissions, maintain current resources. Regeneration aims to actively heal: rebuild soil, restore coral reefs, revive knowledge systems. The Bahamas has formally embraced the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals across six overarching objectives, but the regenerative framework goes further, asking not just how to sustain but how to repair.

One unresolved tension is scale. Individual households can compost and plant fruit trees, but the Bahamas imports roughly 90 percent of its food. The regenerative food forest model works beautifully on one acre but has not yet been proven at commercial scale across the archipelago. Hauber acknowledges that farmers need to see results before they change practices — and the OEF/CTI project is designed precisely as that proof.

Another comparison worth drawing is between Bahamian approaches and those of other Caribbean small island developing states. The Bahamas hosted Pre-COP16 in August 2024, and Caribbean ministers collectively attended the Riyadh conference. The region shares challenges — rising sea levels, saline intrusion, food insecurity — but responses vary. The Bahamas has emphasized marine protected areas (more than doubled), protected tree species (quadrupled), and a plastics ban. Other islands have invested more in agroecology certification or community seed banks. There is no single Caribbean model.

Questions Readers Ask

Is sustainable tourism actually practiced in the Bahamas, or is it greenwashing?

The picture is mixed. The government has banned single-use plastics, doubled marine protected areas, and launched the Destination Stewardship Council. But enforcement varies, and many resorts still operate with high water and energy consumption. Travelers can support NGOs like BREEF, Coral Vita, and the One Eleuthera Foundation, which publish transparent reports.

Can visitors participate in regenerative agriculture projects?

Yes, on a limited basis. The CTI food forest in Rock Sound offers tours through The Retreat Hotel. The Island School runs immersive programs for students. Some farms on Abaco, including Abaco Neem Farm, offer tours. Hands-on volunteering is less common — most projects prioritize local training over short-term visitor labor.

Is bush medicine still widely used?

Yes, particularly on the Out Islands. Andros, Exuma, and Long Island have strong traditions. Farmers markets in Nassau and Eleuthera increasingly sell bush tea blends. However, the knowledge is primarily oral and aging — the Harbour Island Green School and BAMSI are working to document and certify traditional herbal knowledge.

How does climate change affect traditional practices?

Rising sea levels cause saltwater intrusion that kills crops and contaminates freshwater lenses. Warmer waters bleach coral reefs that serve as fish nurseries. Stronger storms destroy food plots and infrastructure. These pressures make ancestral knowledge — which was calibrated to a more stable climate — harder to apply without adaptation.

What is the biggest misconception about Bahamian sustainability?

That it is a recent, Western-imposed concept. Composting, rainwater catchment, intercropping, and herbal medicine were standard practice for generations. The “regenerative” label often describes a return to methods that were displaced by imported goods, chemical agriculture, and tourism development — not an invention.

What Regeneration Teaches Beyond the Bahamas

The Bahamian story of sustainable living is not a lesson plan for visitors to copy, but a case study in how a small island nation navigates the gap between ancestral knowledge and ecological crisis. The regenerative food forest on Eleuthera, the bush tea sold at farmers markets, the solar panels on school roofs — these are not separate initiatives but threads of a single insight: that caring for land, water, and community is not a new idea, but one that was never fully lost. The question now is whether policy, investment, and generational transmission can catch up to what practice already knows.

For a deeper look at how community values shape daily life across the islands, see Family Above All: Exploring the Core Values of Bahamian Culture.

Sources and further reading

Ava Turnquest. “Regeneration Is Remembering.” Sustainable Me. 🔗

One Eleuthera Foundation. “Pioneering Sustainable Agriculture in The Bahamas With Our Regenerative Food Forest.” 🔗

The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism. “Sustainability in The Bahamas.” 🔗

ZNS Bahamas. “The Bahamas Achieving Milestones in Land Management and Climate Resilience.” 🔗

Related reading on IslandHopperGuides

The Future of Tradition: How Bahamian Culture is Adapting and Evolving — examines how traditional practices are being reshaped by modern pressures.

Beyond the Beach: Uncovering the Deep History of Bahamian Storytelling — oral tradition as a carrier of environmental and historical knowledge.